


Deep In The Heart (Old Version)

by BluebonnetDaniel



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: A little bit of everything, Don’t copy to another site, Original Character-centric, Original Story - Freeform, Religious Themes, Texas AU, no human franchise characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-10-14 21:38:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 30,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17516318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BluebonnetDaniel/pseuds/BluebonnetDaniel
Summary: Note: This one won't be updated anymore because I am rebooting it. Later on I will start a new version of the story with significant changes. See my profile for the new version





	1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: In My Good Christian Suburb?**

On the night before Thursday, September 4, 2014 A.D., Ashley woke up in the Metaverse. The sky was dark, and the only light came from purple and red glowing veins that ran across the ground and all of the buildings in her hometown. Nobody was around except for her, wandering the streets of the strange parallel world.  
Curiously, her wandering brought her an area that looked like a normal residential area, with one large building that was surrounded by small houses and a sizable parking lot.  
There she stood in her pajamas, a 5’10’’ teenage girl with long, red hair, her face serious and stoic, looking at what looked like a sign, except nothing was written on it- just a large vein of red going straight over the top.  
After a minute or so, she seemed to be done with the sign, and walked towards the building, entering through a door. Inside, there was a long hallway right in front of her, a staircase at the front of the hallway, and another set of double doors directly to her right. The purple and red veins that were everywhere outside also ran inside the building.  
She went straight to the right, past the stairs, and through the double doors, still not changing expression. Through the doors was what looked like a massive sanctuary of a church. The stage was right to the left of the door, and there were rows upon rows of pews, and even a balcony area at the back.  
Right behind the stage was an enormous stained glass window. There was no design on it; it just looked like everything else. However, the glass seemed to have a shimmer to it.  
She walked down one the aisles slowly, looking around carefully and observing the area. After she had walked partway down, she heard a bunch of strange noises behind her, like water dripping into a pond but very loud.  
She spun around, and on the stage there were six creatures. They resembled coyotes, but they had blood red fur, and their legs and paws were made up of a strange, angular pattern. They were all running straight towards her.  
She didn’t have much to defend herself with, but she made a wide stance and drew her fists. The coyotes stopped and made a circle around her, growling.  
Ashley kept a serious expression, but now had furrowed her brow. Keeping her stance, she slowly turned around to try and keep her eyes on them.

* * *

In her mind’s eye, she was surrounded by various shades of the some of same colors that were everyone in the outside world; purple, red, but also some pink, making random patterns all around her. There, she heard a singsong feminine voice:  
“Ashley, it seems like you once again need my help.”  
Ashley got noticeably angry. “I’ve needed your help for the past three or so years. Why did you forsake me?”  
“You won’t let me in,” the voice said. “You stay in your cage where it is safe.”  
“Nothing cages me,” Ashley said indignantly. “I can accomplish anything that I set my mind to.”  
“But you’re miserable.”  
“Yeah, well… isn’t that just how life is?”  
The voice sighed at her. “You haven’t been honest with those that you love.”  
“Of course not. Remember what happened last time I was honest with someone I loved? I’d like to hold on to the only friend I have this time, thank you.”  
There was a pause.  
“There’s not much I can do for you if you’re going to fight me like this. Ashley, where do you think that music comes from?”  
“What?” Ashley seemed completely taken aback by the question. “Why would you ask me that question? Of course I know where music comes from.”  
“I don’t think you do, really,” the voice said. “It’s not from sound waves, or blowing air, or pressing the right buttons. It’s not a bunch of lines and circles on a page, either.”  
Ashley looked puzzled. “What... are you playing at here?”  
The voice sighed again. “Okay. I will give you this. It should help protect you until you are ready to reach your full potential.”  
And so, a golden chain necklace with a huge, colorless gem hanging on it appeared in front of Ashley. She looked at it, puzzled, but still put it on.

* * *

Back in the sanctuary, Ashley’s body seemed to convulse, and she began tensing up. A mask appeared on her face. She reached up and tore it off. She winced, and it caused blood to pour where it was removed… but then, her body was engulfed in blue fire… and she appeared from the fire, wearing a golden set of armor and brandishing a silver longsword. In the middle of her chestplate was the same large gem. Behind her, was a tall, blue ghostly thing with big yellow eyes.  
She seemed to come to her senses and sprung into action. She lunged forward and took out two of the coyotes in one sword swipe. The coyotes were knocked into one of the pews with a thud, and dissipated into dark energy.  
However, the other four took this opportunity to attack. She pivoted quickly to the left to knock one of them back, but another one jumped onto her from behind and caused her to topple over.  
On her stomach, she was defenseless, and could only struggle desperately to push the coyotes off…  
Until suddenly, a loud bang sounded and all four of the remaining coyotes were blasted back with a flash of fire.  
Ashley hastily got up on her feet and picked her sword back up, but the coyotes were badly hurt by the blast; the one she knocked away had dissipated into darkness, while the remaining three retreated. They ran back towards the front of the sanctuary, leaping over the stairs, and straight through the stained glass at the back.  
It was suddenly quiet. Ashley kept her stance still, but turned around to check her surroundings.  
At the back of the sanctuary, she saw something else- what appeared to be a blue armadillo standing on its hind legs. It stood at only about 3 feet tall, had a red bandana cover its neck, wore a ten gallon hat, and had a revolver in a holster on its belt.  
The armadillo tipped its hat to Ashley, and spoke in a deep, manly voice with a thick, southern accent; “Howdy, pardner.”  
Ashley’s eyes briefly widened in amusement, but after a second she regained her composure. “Hello. Are you the one behind that fire?”  
The armadillo nodded his head. “A wandering, lonely soul, a furnace that burns fiery red, will lead a charge against the oppressor of the land.”  
“Um… I’ll take that as a yes,” Ashley said. “What or who exactly… are you, though?”  
“I know this world and the space underneath, I know the lands which you call your home, and I’m here to aid you.”  
“That’s good to know… not exactly the answer I was looking for, but I’ll take it.”  
Ashley finally sheathed her sword. “So what exactly is this place, then?”  
The armadillo looked around. “The church. It serves as a bridge between us and the higher realm.”  
Ashley seemed a little annoyed by that answer. “I know what a church is, thank you. I mean, why is everything dark? Why does everything look like this?”  
“That’s how our brains can process and understand that which is not designed for our understanding.”  
Ashley was definitely annoyed now. “Okay, new question: Why does everything you say sound like a fucking proverb?”  
“I am trapped in this life, and my own self is locked away by the oppressor. It is only by freeing the land can I be free.”  
“Okay… this is too weird even for me. I don’t have time for this.” Ashley turned around and started walking back out the way she came.  
“When the news comes in, we will meet again,” the armadillo said, not seeming at all bothered by her departure.  
“We’ll see about that,” Ashley said, exiting through the double doors.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

Thursday, September 4, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

Ashley woke up to the sound of her alarm clock the next morning, at 6:00 AM. She promptly got out of bed and started getting dressed.

Her eyes wandered over to the journal sitting on her bedside table. It was open on the very first page.

All that was written on it was this:

Property of:

~~Alyssa Shannon Lee~~

~~Kyle Malachi Simpson~~

Ashley Viola Davis

Two names written in pencil with the same handwriting that had been crossed out, and a third that had been written in much more recently.

She looked at it blankly for a few seconds, before suddenly picking it up and shoving it into a drawer, out of sight.

Then, when she was dressed in a red t-shirt and grey sweatpants, she then walked out of her room and into a long hallway. She passed by a closet, a bathroom halfway down the hallway, and a second unoccupied bedroom at the very opposite end. Right in front of the other bedroom, on the right, she went through a door.

To her left, was the front door to the house, which led into a small entryway next to the dining room. Right in front of her was the kitchen, and a ways to her right was the living room.

An adult woman was in the dining room, who like the girl had long, red hair and a similar build. She was still wearing pajamas. She was eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs, with a side of S'mores Pop Tarts.

“Good morning, Ashley!” the woman said cheerily.

Ashley walked through the entryway towards the table. “Good morning, mom. You’re inducing your sugar coma early today.”

Her mom smiled, but also put her hands on her hips in mock defiance. “You’ve become such a mouthy teenager… one of these days, I’ll have to find that wooden paddle.”

“I don’t remember you ever owning one of those,” Ashley responded.

“Well, I never used it on you… it was for your father. Can you go get the mail?”

“Sure.” Ashley went outside to do just that.

The family lived a one-story house that had a fairly large front yard that sloped slightly downward and was split in half by the walkway that led to the mailbox. On the right side, in between the sidewalk and the driveway, there was an enormous oak tree that stood over 50 ft tall. On the other side was a _John Cornyn 2014_ campaign sign.

Ashley walked out to the mailbox, and as she got close she suddenly stopped. There was an armadillo standing right next to the post. Nothing unusual about it- it was colored normally and standing on all fours. Ashley relaxed and continued approaching the mailbox. “Calm down,” she said to herself. “It was only a dream.”

However, as she reached for the handle to open the mail, the armadillo titled its head straight up and said, in the same deep, southern accent, “Howdy, pardner.”

Ashley froze again, her eyes wide. “What. The fuck.”

She swooped down and picked up the armadillo, holding it at a distance in front of her.

“How did you find where I live?” Ashley asked, very seriously.

“I live here too,” the armadillo answered.

Ashley’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not your call. I’m not just going to adopt you as my pet.”

“It is important that we discuss the workings of the conduit.”

“I don’t take chemistry until next year, so I have better things to worry about.” Suddenly, Ashley glanced in the direction of the house, and then hastily put the armadillo down. “I don’t have time to chit chat with a freak of nature right now. I need to eat something for breakfast.”

“The base of operations shall be your backyard,” the armadillo replied.

Ashley grabbed the mail from the mailbox at last. “Don’t dig any holes back there, or I will destroy everything that you love.”

As Ashley walked away, the armadillo said, “I have nothing left to lose.”

* * *

 

“What are you thinking about over there?”

They were pulling close to a large, red brick building- Enchantment City High School. Ashley’s mother was looking at her curiously.

“I was thinking about this… um, crazy dream that I had last night.”

“Are you? I had an interesting myself a few days ago.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. I had a dream that we were on a trip out of town, and I was walking around a strip mall looking for some church. However, whenever I found it, I ended up falling asleep on the bench outside and missing the entire service. In fact, when I woke up, it was night time. I was also in my underwear for some reason. Then, right after I woke up, Jesus walked up to me, and told me that it was my duty to stand up for people in society who are discriminated against.”

“Oh.” Ashley didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.

“While I’m thinking about it,” Ashley’s mom continued, “I should tell you that your dad and I aren’t going to be home until late tonight. You can take the bus, or…”

“I’ll go to Zoe’s house today.”

“Well, I’m shocked to hear that,” Ashley’s mom said, sarcastically.

They pulled up near where the band hall was, and Ashley was dropped off, a trumpet in one hand, a french horn in the other, and a backpack on her back.

She walked in through the doors. Standing idle nearby on his phone, was a boy with blonde hair cut in a buzz cut, wearing jeans and a grey school shirt.

He smirked at her, and did a sort of mock curtsy. “My queen.” Ashley completely ignored him.

After putting up the instruments in their respective lockers, Ashley walked towards the front of the room. She passed by a black man dressed in a white/blue checkered button down shirt and khakis.

“Good morning, Ashley,” the man said very elegantly.

“Good morning, Mr. Castro,” she replied nonchalantly.

She walked past Mr. Castro’s office into the back room of the band hall, where a bunch of mallet percussion was set up in two lines. However, nobody else was in there.

She walked to the left, and opened the door to a rather large practice room that had more assorted percussion equipment inside. The lights inside were already on.

On the floor partway across the room, another girl with curly blonde hair and a rounder, rosy complexion was sitting on the floor with a folder on her lap and a bunch of flash cards in her hands. She was wearing a light teal shirt and dark blue jeans.

When Ashley walked in, she looked up and smiled. “Good morning!”

“Good morning, Zoe,” Ashley said, smiling back. Ashley took a seat right next to her.

Zoe put down her flashcards and looked exasperated. “Ashley, I don’t feel so good about this english quiz.”

“You never feel too good about anything,” Ashley said. “I bet it’ll be multiple choice.”

“Did you study?”

“Yeah, last night.”

“Can you explain to me what exactly a the difference is between a ‘static’ and ‘dynamic’ character?”

All of a sudden, a third girl walked into the room, who was shorter, and had thick-rimmed glasses and medium length brown hair. Without introduction, she started saying, “Ashley, when FDR signed the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, he said that ‘no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.’ That’s a direct quote.”

“Okay Anja,” Ashley responded. “That doesn’t really refute anything that I said during lunch yesterday.”

“It doesn’t, Anja admitted, sitting on the ground across from the other two. “I just thought that you may find that fact interesting.”

Ashley rolled her eyes. “A dynamic character changes and grows over the course of the story, while a static character stays mostly the same. To be more specific, a dynamic character should grow as a person and end the story with a different perspective than when they started.”

“Okay, that makes _way_ more sense than the way that Ms. Truman explained it,” Zoe said.

“In life, aren’t we all dynamic characters?” Anja commented.

“I hope so,” Zoe said, picking up her folder and rummaging through it. Ashley said nothing.

* * *

 

However, Ashley and Zoe were quite surprised to walk into their first period english classroom, only to find the desks arranged in groups of threes- not exactly an ideal set up for a quiz.

“I’ve decided to postpone the quiz until tomorrow,” Ms. Truman, explained. “Today, we will be doing a group project.”

“That’s a relief,” Zoe said as the two of them sat down at an empty table. “Now I have another day to prepare!”

“Personally,” Ashley commented, “I prefer to know what to expect when I walk into class.”

As all of the students took seats, one boy with short brown hair was glancing around nervously. He walked up to the desk where the two girls were sitting.

“Um… Is.. Can I…”

Ashley looked at him with a slight smile. “Just sit down, Kevin. We’re not going to bite you.”

Kevin blushed and took the third seat.

Zoe, not looking at him, said, “so, we need to find out what it is we’re supposed to be doing…”

There was a hand-out on Ashley’s desk, which she grabbed. “Let’s see… instructions… I’ll just read it to you guys, since we only have one.”

While Ashley read aloud the instructions, Ms. Truman silently walked up behind Kevin.

“Do you understand what’s going on today?” She said quietly. She put a hand on his shoulder.

Kevin blushed again. “Um, I th- think so, Ms. Truman.”

“You can just call me Shari.” She went to check on another table, and Kevin was left there looking really uncomfortable.

Ashley and Zoe had not noticed anything, as they were focused on figuring out the instructions to the project.


	3. Chapter 3

It was lunch time, and Ashley and Zoe were sitting with Anja, as well as a boy with brown skin and thick, messy black hair who was wearing basketball shorts. The boy was not actually eating, and was instead playing a 3DS XL under the table.

“Did any of you get to go see Guardians of the Galaxy?” Anja asked out of the blue.

“Guardians what?” Ashley replied.

Zoe bit her lip. “No, my family has been too busy recently to take a trip to the movies.”

Anja looked at the boy. “Nova, what about you?”

“What?”

“...Did you see Guardians of the Galaxy?”

“Hell yeah.”

Anja smiled. “Somebody at this table has class, at least.”

“Me? Class? Pfft.” Nova responded, laughing at the mere thought.

“I don’t exactly have time to go watch a movie every weekend. I have shit to do,” Ashley explained.

“I’d recommend it, though,” Anja pressed. “It was really funny, and Chris Pratt is in it.”

“Why should I care about Chris Pratt?” Ashley questioned.

“Um, because he’s  _ cute _ ?” Anja explained.

Zoe gave her a puzzled look, but Ashley just rolled her eyes and returned to her food.

“I agree with her,” Nova said, suddenly looking up from under the table. There was a pause. “Um, about the movie being good.”

* * *

 

The rest of the school day passed, and so did marching band practice. As planned, Ashley went to Zoe’s house to get some homework done while her parents her out gigging. Zoe’s mother was preparing dinner, while Ashley and Zoe hung out in the latter’s room, which was very neatly organized and clean. They had been reviewing for the delayed English quiz, but they got sidetracked with gossip- specifically, about Kevin from English class.

“...And then, when his parents and the cops finally found him, they didn’t believe the story about the burglar, and they were super mad.”

Ashley sighed. “No good deed goes unpunished, I guess.”

“But like… it’s such a weird story,” Zoe remarked. “Most people think that he just made it up as cover.”

“Well, that could be true,” Ashley said. “Or, that boy could just have the worst luck on the planet.”

“Either way, that must put quite a damper on the vacation.” Zoe said.

They had been both sitting on Zoe’s bed, but this point Zoe evidently gave up on getting anything else done, because she put her school stuff down on the nightstand, stood up, and stretched with her arms behind her back. She then turned back to the bed, where Ashley was looking straight at her with a blank expression.

“Are you okay?” Zoe asked her.

Ashley suddenly blinked and then looked up at her. “Yes. I w- uh, I zoned out for a second.”

Zoe smiled at her. “That’s rare for you.” She begun putting the stuff on her nightstand back into her bag, and as she did so, she kept talking. “How are you always so serious during class? Most kids at our school are practically on another planet by the last couple of periods.”

Ashley didn’t respond, but Zoe continued on that train of thought anyway.

“Do you think that’s the reason why Kevin likes you?”

Ashley suddenly tensed a little bit. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well... he always seems so nervous whenever we work together during English.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s like that around everyone.”

Zoe sat back down on the bed. “I guess that could be it…”

“Why would being ‘serious’ be a reason to like me, anyway?”

“Well,” Zoe began, “I meant that… you’re smart, and you always get your work done. There’s something desirable in that.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so,” Ashley said. 

Zoe was biting her lip awkwardly now. “Did… were you… have you ever been in a relationship? Maybe back in California?”

Ashley shook her head. “Nope. Why do you ask?”

Zoe blushed. “W- No reason. You just… uh, never talk about what it was like there.”

“Yeah, there’s a reason for that.”

There was an awkward pause. Then, Ashley turned to Zoe, who rubbing her hands nervously and looking at the floor. 

“What about you, then?” Ashley asked her. “Have you ever been in one?”

Zoe shook her head. “No… I… haven’t either.”

Ashley smiled. “Well, there’s n-”

She was cut off mid-sentence by a banging on the door.

“Dinner is ready!” a boy’s voice said.

Zoe abruptly got up. “Well, we better head down there then.”

* * *

 

Later that night, back at Ashley’s house, Ashley turned on the back light and stepped out into the backyard.

The backyard had an open porch with shrubbery on either side. In the middle was a standard-sized ash tree, that was surrounded by a small enclosure of dirt held by bricks.

Ashley sighed heavily as she saw an armadillo walk towards the porch from the dirt enclosure. 

The armadillo nodded his head. “Howdy pardner,” he said in the same distinct southern voice.

“You know, I was really hoping that you weren’t going to say anything, and that I was just having a stress hallucination this morning,” Ashley said. Still, she sat down in a lawn chair that was on the porch. “Okay then, Mr. Armadillo, what the fuck happened last night?”

“This reality is not all that there is,” the armadillo begun. “This plane exists in three dimensions. But the conduit can take us underground, to a place that is beyond time.” There was a pause. “...You should call me by ‘Ted,’ by the way.”

“Okay ...Ted, what exactly is this ‘conduit’ then?”

“Only three exist in the world. One is a chamber that banishes light, one is a store of human knowledge, and one is a jewel that can affect certain electric marvels.”

Ashley had to think about that one. “Okay, the first and last things don’t sound like anything remotely close to anything I own. But the second one, ‘a store of human knowledge,’ could that be a book?”

“Never have I laid eyes upon the artifacts of the heroes, but stories of time have been passed down to me.” 

Ashley sighed. “Stay right here.”

She went back inside, into her room, and grabbed the journal that she had shoved into a drawer that morning. She also grabbed a pencil. She took both of those outside and sat back down. 

She showed the front cover of the journal to Ted. It had a thin, worn brown cover with nothing written on it.

“Well, you may be laying eyes upon one now, then. I found this in one of the boxes in my closet yesterday. It has nothing in it left except for this.”

She opened the cover, and showed the three names written in it.

She pointed at the first one. “‘Alyssa Shannon Lee’ is my mom’s name, so this must have belonged to her at some point. I have no idea who this second person is, but his name is written in my mom’s handwriting, so she must have known him at some point. And the last name is mine.”

She closed the journal and set it down. “I did write something else on the next page, but when I checked it this morning, it was gone. This is just what I wanted- you dig up an old journal to write in because you’re having a really shitty day, and you’re rewarded with having all of your writings erased, and being sent into Hell to get mauled to death by a pack of freakish coyotes.”

She grabbed the pencil and started writing on the second page of the book.

Hey, weird book. Talk to me. 

Nothing happened.

“Well, honestly I’m kind of glad that didn’t work,” Ashley said. “If this book started telling me that I need to go open the chamber of secrets, I would not hesitate to burn it.”

She suddenly looked down at Ted. “You’ve been quiet this whole time. Are you sure you don’t know anything?”

“Only that if you are correct, this must be the conduit of the Master of the Mind.” 

“Is there any way I could like, e-mail this person to ask what the fuck is going on?”

She sighed. “Don’t answer that, I was being sarcastic. The real question is, is there any reason why I’d even want to go back to that place?”

“What happens in the underground realm affects this world,” Ted explained. “One can affect the behavior of someone else.” 

“Well, if that’s the case, I can think of a number of people who  _ shouldn’t _ have access to this.” Ashley stood up. “I think that’s enough weirdness for today, I have like three tests tomorrow.”

“I must know if you discover anything,” Ted said as she went to go back inside.

“Sure. Just hang out here, I guess.” She suddenly paused right by the door. “Do you like… need any food?”

“The American dream is a self-made man living off the land,” Ted said.

Ashley shrugged. “Okay, suit yourself.” She went back inside and returned to her room.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 Friday, September 5, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

The next day, Ashley was sitting in her AP Human Geography class, four minutes before the bell. There was a test in the class, so Ashley was reviewing using flash cards she had prepared beforehand.

The girl who was sitting right behind her tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey Ashley! Can I… see those real quick?”

“Nope,” Ashley said.

The girl looked shocked. “...No? Please Ashley? I’m panicking!”

“That’s not my fault.” Ashley said, still not even turning to look at the other girl.

Sitting in the row to their right, was none other than the blond-haired boy Ashley had ignored in the band hall yesterday. He turned to the girl behind Ashley and said, in a stereotypical old English accent, “Sorry, the peasants must payeth thy taxes before speaking to the queen!”

The girl had turned to a different student to ask for help, and Ashley continued on as if nothing had happened.

“You saved the day again!” The boy said to Ashley, grinning. “You sure showed Diana the importance of preparing b-”

“Mason. Shut the fuck up. I’m studying.” Ashley whispered, cutting him off mid sentence.

Mason started laughing at her. “Wow! I’m so sorry, you really got me there.”

Ashley shook her head, and went back to her work. Mason got bored and left her alone.

* * *

 

Finally, Ashley was done with tests and quizzes for the day. She walked out her biology class, where she had just taken the weekly root word quiz, when she ran into Zoe, who had class in the same room afterwards.

Zoe almost ran up to her. “How was it? I don’t even know what is the how this going.”

Ashley blinked. “Um… can you say that again, slowly?”

Zoe just looked up at her, looking as if she was about to burst into tears. “I meant it last night, how can you stay so calm all the time? Every time I have to take another test I feel like my brain is slowly unravelling…”

“Zoe, there’s nothing wrong with you,” Ashley said softly. “You just have… uh, testing anxiety.”

“Are you sure I’m not just stupid?”

“W- No, Zoe, you’re not stupid.” Ashley put her hands on Zoe’s shoulders. “And I go to this school, so I know all about stupid.”

Zoe smiled and seemed a little calmer. “Well, okay…”

Ashley put her hands back down and looked around. “I mean, like that Mason kid.”

“The trombone player?”

“Yeah, him. He’s such a jackass to everyone all the time.”

Zoe winced a little. “Well… yeah.”

Ashley shook her head. “You better get to class. Good luck.”

“T- Thank you, I’ll need it.” And so the two parted ways.

* * *

Much later that day, there was a football game. During the last quarter, Ashley abandoned the mellophone section to go and sit next to Zoe. The two were talking about television.

“The season 3 finale was released on the website a couple of weeks ago,” Ashley was saying. “Season 4 is expected to begin October.”

“Is it good?” Zoe inquired. “I haven’t heard anything about this.”

“It’s rough around the edges,” Ashley said, “but it’s still worth a watch if you liked the original series. Season 3 ended on an… interesting note.”

“Really?” Zoe asked, interested. “What do you mean?”

Ashley smiled at her. “I can’t tell you, that’d be spoiling it…”

“You got me curious!” Zoe said hyperactively. “Just tell me!”

“How about this… after church, maybe you can watch through the series with me.”

Zoe grinned. “That sounds like a plan! Boy, I need a break from school…”

Suddenly, Anja sat down behind them. “Hey, is there where the cool kids are sitting?”

“Shouldn’t you be with your section?” Ashley asked her, as Anja put her trombone down behind her.

Anja shrugged. “Does anyone _really_ give a shit? I got tired of losing to Nova in Mario Kart.”

Ashley furled her eyebrows at her. “You guys play video games during the game?”

“What else is there to do?”

“Well, let’s see… playing our instruments!”

Anja shrugged again. “The team’s on offense! Anyways, what are you two talking about?”

“Anja, did you know that they’re making a sequel to Avatar?” Zoe said. “I still haven’t gotten around to watching it.”

“Oh yeah, Korra is pretty awesome,” Anja said.

“I mean… I guess it has its moments,” Ashley said. “But I was kind of disappointed with the lo-” She stopped herself. “We can’t say anything spoiler-y, Zoe and I are going to watch it together this weekend.”

“Oh really?” Anja said. “I could stand to re-watch the show to prepare for season 4.”

Ashley looked irritated at her. “Um… I was thinking of it as more of a Zoe and I only thing…”

Anja was puzzled for a second, but then she started giggling.

Ashley was even more annoyed now. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s okay Ashley, I understand,” Anja said very teasingly. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“ _Don’t have to tell you WHAT?”_

At that moment, the conversation was cut short by the sounds of clattering and everyone shuffling music and instruments around, as the team was on defense again, and the band was given orders to prepare Land of 1000 Dances.

“God damn it, again?” Anja said, grabbing her instrument and returning to her section.

* * *

 

After the game, Anja was giving Nova a ride home from school. While she drove, they discussed the roster of Super Smash Bros. 3DS and WiiU.

“Ridley?” Nova asked.

Anja bit her lip. “Ehh. It’s kinda iffy.”

“Mewtwo?”

“I could see him coming back.”

“Dr. Mario?”

“Probably not.”

“Snake?”

“Doubt it. They would’ve shown him earlier.”

“K. Rool?”

“We can hope.”

On and on this went, until they arrived at Nova’s apartment complex.

“The gate’s closed, buddy,” Anja said. “You’re gonna have to walk.”

Nova sighed heavily. “Fine. Later, loser.” Without further ado, Nova jumped out of the car and started running to his apartment.

Anja laughed as she watched him run. “That guy is so funny,” she said to herself.

After dropping him off, Anja headed for a different house. It was a small, somewhat raggedy looking house in the northern part of town. She parked on the street and knocked on the door.

A woman in her mid-20s with short hair and a very goth appearance answered the door.

Anja looked nervous. “Um, hi I…”

“Come on in, Anja,” the woman said. Anja followed her inside, and the woman shut the door behind them and led her into a bar room in the back of the house.

The woman started rummaging around with some boxes on the counter. “Did the team win tonight?”

“No, they didn’t,” Anja said. “Zora, I… I actually have some… um, bad news this time.”

Zora looked up at her. “What’s up, kid?”

Anja shook her head. “I… don’t want to do this anymore.”

Zora kept on rummaging. “I see.”

Anja was blushing and biting her lip. “I mean… it’s nothing personal, I promise. It’s just…

You know, my dad… he works at a rehab clinic sometimes, and he… he always talks about how bad weed is for… um… developing brains, and…”

“Hey, I get it kid.” Zora said, turning away from the counter. “Don’t sweat it.”

Anja looked relieved. “R-really? No hard feelings?”

Zora smiled at her. “Hey, I get it. You’re still a teenager, you still have to get along with your folks.”

Anja breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Yeah.” Zora grabbed something from the top shelf behind her. “I’ll help you out with some advice, though: you’re going to wanna wean yourself. If you quit cold turkey, you’ll go into withdrawal.”

Anja bit her lip. “Well… But I… Hmm.”

Zora stood next to Anja and put her arm around her shoulder. “Listen to me. If you really want to be clean, you have to do this right. If you try to quit with no transition, you’ll just be back here bawling for more in three days. I’ve seen it happen before.”

Zora handed her a plastic bag, with the typical looking green bits inside.

“Make this your last one, and it’ll be on the house. Just steadily decrease whatever amount you’ve been doing, then when you’re totally clean, put the rest in my mailbox so you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

Anja seemed unsure still, but Zora had already walked into another room, so she ended up not getting to argue.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

Saturday, September 6, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

It was early afternoon back at Ashley’s house. Ashley’s father was sitting in the living room. Like the rest of the family, he was fairly tall, though not unusually for a male. He donned thin, rounded glasses and short, but bodied hair.

Ashley walked into the living room in the same clothes she had worn to bed the previous night, holding a CD case. The case had a few vague pink and blue splotches on it, but no words.

“You may have this back now,” she said.

Her father looked up from the book he was reading in the armchair, which was titled  _ The Making of Modern Economics.  _ The book cover had the title on the left, and a statue of a serious looking man on the right. “Ah yes, I will take that,” he said, taking the CD. “What did you think? I personally think that one isn’t as strong as their later work.”

Ashley shrugged. “I liked it.”

“Well, you’re young,” her father replied ambiguously. 

Ashley turned for the back door. “Since the weather’s nice today, I think I’m going to go for a walk.”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘nice,’ it’s almost 90 degrees out there,” her father said. “But go ahead, it’s only going to get hotter as the day goes on.”

Ashley went outside, and indeed it was a sunny day; not a cloud in the sky. She went over to the ash tree, but there was nobody there.

“Where is that little rodent?” She wondered aloud. After a few seconds, she said, “Please don’t leave comments saying that armadillos aren’t actually rodents, I know that already.”  

She looked all around the back yard, and found nobody. She eventually ended up checking the front yard, and found Ted sitting by the big oak tree, looking up at it.

“What the hell? I thought you were sticking to the backyard,” Ashley said as she walked up behind him.

“The enemy we face is bigger than you can imagine,” Ted said to her. 

“Well, maybe we can talk about that, then, because I still have no idea what you actually want from me.”

She picked him up. “Let’s go somewhere else, though. I don’t know what my parents would think of me talking to an armadillo, but... well, I’m afraid to find out.”

So, with Ted in tow, she went down to the end of her street, and across the one that ran past her neighborhood. She walked down a thin driveway to a church; not the same one from earlier, though. This one was surrounded mostly by trees and was decently far away from the any of the residencies. The thin driveway eventually hit a fork, where a large, glorious stone sign said  _ First Methodist Church _ . The sign was surrounded by a bed of flowers. The left fork led to a parking lot, and the right fork to the church itself. Despite the elaborate landscaping, the church itself was old and humble. 

Ashley walked past the building and to a few shoddy wooden picnic tables that were down the hill. Everything behind the tables was forest. This is where she took a seat. She set Ted down on the table. 

“So, now that it’s the weekend and we actually have some spare time, I want to start getting to the bottom of this.”

“I will impart upon you what I know, but a poisonous urchin bedazzles me.”

Ashley lowered her eyes suspiciously. “A poisonous… urchin, huh. Anyways, question number one: why didn’t we end up in that other place again last night?”

“The very beginning is when I first was able to access that world after a score.”

Ashley stared at him. “You’re gonna need to give me a few to decipher your… intricate way of speaking. So, by ‘the very beginning,’ do you mean when we first met?”

“The very beginning of the destiny foretold; the shining path that we must follow, to rid the…”

“Okay, new plan. Whenever I ask for a clarification, you just nod ‘yes’ or shake your head ‘no.’ If we keep trying to communicate this way, I’m just gonna get more confused every time you talk.”

Ted stopped talking and simply nodded.

“Okay, good, you can do that,” Ashley said. “So let me ask you again: ‘the very beginning’ is when we first met, yes or no.”

Ted nodded.

“Okay. So that night was the first time you were able to get into the world for… a score. Twenty years.”

Ted nodded again.

“Okay… that doesn’t quite answer my question, but let’s see if we can figure this out. So we were both able to go there, because… I wrote in the journal. So I guess I need to write something else to open it again?”

Ted shrugged.

“Alright, we’ll figure it out then. Number two: what exactly are you hoping to accomplish in that other world?”

“We must begin an uprising, to defeat the oppressor of the land.”

“Okay… tell me about this ‘oppressor’ person that you keep on talking about.”

Ted took a deep breath.

“I am the rightful ruler of this land. But the oppressor wanted it for herself. So she built her palace and cursed me to my weakened state. So now, the oppressor’s palace weighs down upon the very soil of this great land. She is a doppelganger; envious of the one we all love. But she has no love. Those who are foolish and chase their idols, she leads astray, creating a masquerade. These foolish people do the oppressor’s evil bidding.”

Ashley blinked. “Wow. So, you were the ‘ruler of this land?’ Are you, like, a former president or something?”

Ted shook his head. “From the shadows.”

“So… you’re not a politician?”

Ted nodded.

Ashley put her hand on her chin. “That’s interesting… So you had some position of indirect power, and this oppressor usurped your throne?”

Ted nodded again.

Ashley drummed her fingers along the table. “Now we’re getting somewhere. So, what’s your plan for ‘beginning an uprising’? I didn’t see any other intelligent life in there to recruit for the cause.”

“We must bring more. When six people have finished their rehabilitation, we can strike.”

Ashley tensed a little and breathed out. “Okay… what exactly are you playing at?”

“Whoever you trust the most,” Ted said simply.

Ashley was clenched her fists. “Well… that title goes to my friend Zoe… but I’m not bringing her in there. She’s too… delicate. She’s really special to me, you know… I couldn’t stand it if she got hurt.”

Ted shook his head. “No death.”

Ashley widened her eyes. “What do you mean?” She put her elbows on the table. “You mean when we travel to the other world, there’s no chance of death?”

Ted nodded. “Physical.”

“Physical… what?”

“No time, no matter.”

Ashley frowned. “Okay… you’re getting at something kind of abstract here. Are you trying to imply that we can’t be physically harmed there, because it’s a place that isn’t affected by time?”

Ted nodded.

“Okay… that sort of makes sense. Are you sure about this?”

“This is me in the physical. In the underground, I stand tall.”

Ashley’s eyes widened again. “Oh. I think I understand.” Ashley stood up from the table. “You’re trying to tell me that in this other world, we have an alternate form. So the form we have in this world can’t be affected by what happens there.”

Ted nodded.

“So even if I had been mauled by those coyotes, it would’ve been fine?”

Ted shook his head. “Can’t go back.”

“If I had been mauled by the coyotes, I couldn’t go back to the other world. But my form in this one would be okay.”

Ted nodded.

Ashley, still standing, leaning forward a little and put her hands on the table in a businesslike way. “That does make me feel better. But… I promised when Zoe and I first became friends that I wouldn’t be selfish and drag her into my bullshit…”

She signed heavily. “And even if I brought her into that place… didn’t you say we need six people? Who else would I even bring in? Not a lot of people are trustworthy enough for something like this…”

“But you trust in the one who saved your life?” Ted asked her.

Ashley shook her head. “Don’t tell me that you’re going to try and hold that over my head. I thought you just said my life wasn’t in danger?”

“Not me,” Ted said.

There was a pause in which Ashley looked at Ted suspiciously for a while, but then she stood up straight again. “You’ve given me a lot to think about,” she said. “I better take off.”

Ashley picked up Ted and put him back on the ground. “I think that this is a better place for you to hang out than my backyard. You’re much less likely to be shot by an irate homeowner, and this location gives us a chance to be able to talk in secrecy like 90% of the time. Just… don’t expect visits from me every day. I’m a busy person.”

“This path will yield a great purpose, for a great cost. You will prepare your treasure in heaven.”

“Um… noted.” Ashley proceeded to walk across the street, into her neighborhood.


	6. Chapter 6

In the evening that same day, Ashley was laid out on her bed, just looking at the ceiling, when her mother walked in.

“Hey kiddo,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Just taking a quick break,” Ashley said, still staring at the ceiling.

“I just wanted to let you know I’m home from Dallas,” she said. 

“How’d it go?”

Ashley’s mom laughed. “I need to get my bass clarinet chops back.” She looked around Ashley’s room a little bit. “Did you guys eat already?”

“Yep.”

“Alright…”   


Suddenly, Ashley sat up. “Hey mom. Have you ever had an encounter with the supernatural?”

Her mom’s face became a little more stern. “Well, technically we have a supernatural encounter when we go to church.”

“I mean, other than that. Haunted houses… ghosts… weird objects… that sort of thing.”

Ashley’s mom gave her a serious look. “I try not to mess around with that stuff. You’d do well to do the same- it’s dangerous.”

Without further ado, she abruptly exited the room.

After a few seconds, Ashley pulled the journal out of its drawer. “Sorry, mom,” she said to herself as she began writing in it.

* * *

 

Ashley woke up in the Metaverse once again after she fell asleep that night.

“Looks like my hypothesis could be correct,” she said to herself. She looked down at her body, which was still clad with golden armor. “Seems as if I get to keep the gear I got last time, so that’s nice.”

She got out of her bed, and checked her surroundings. She seemed to realise for the first time that she was alone. “Where is that blue asshole?” she said aloud to herself.

She exited the house and went down the street to the Methodist Church. This version of the area wasn’t quite as pretty; all of the flowers were replaced with strange-looking plants that were red and resembled coral.

Ted, now back two legs and blue-skinned again, was waiting in front of the church. When he saw her, he twirled his revolver in his hand for no reason and then followed after her.

“I guess we wake up wherever our bodies were in the real world,” Ashley observed as she walked back towards the street. “Alright, Ted- I thought about it a lot, and… fine. I’ll bite. Follow me- we have a decent-length walk to get to where we need to go.”

So they took off down the road. Ashley and Ted walked down several blocks, leaving Ashley’s neighborhood for a different one in town. Even with the distorted appearance of the world, one could tell that this other neighborhood had more money in it. The houses were bigger, the lawns bigger and more decorated.

They had walked a short way when the two of them saw a house which was completely different from all of the others. Every other house in the town was the same few homogenous colors as the ground and everything else, but this one house was colored pastel shades of yellow, blue and pink. The grass in the yard was bright green and neatly trimmed, and there was a cute stone path leading to the door.

“Oh dear,” Ashley said. “What have I done.”

“It’s a palace,” Ted said. 

“Eh… I’d said it’s more of a cutesy fairy tale home,” Ashley replied.

The two made for the house. They went through the yard and right through the front door.

There didn’t seem to be anyone home. The inside of the house looked even more over-the-top than the outside. The living room was filled with flowers, and brightly colored fluffy couches which looked sickeningly comfortable. Everything had some sort of floral or polka dot pattern, and the walls were littered with cheesy inspirational posters of kittens. Through the windows, it looked like a sunny day outside, even though just a second ago the sky had still been dark.

“Hey Zoe, are you home?” Ashley shouted. They didn’t hear anything back.

She made her way to the other side of the living room, and through a short hallway which led to three doors; two against the back wall, and one on the wall perpendicular to the left. Ashley went through the one on the back wall, to the left.

She was about to walk into the room, but stopped in mid-step and went backwards. If she had walked in any further, she would have put her foot right in the middle of a large, iron bear trap.

“Oh, what the fuck is this shit?” she said angrily.

The floor was full of bear traps exactly like the first one; otherwise, the room looked exactly like the rest of the house. Zoe was sitting on her bed in an elaborate white wedding dress. She was cradling her legs with her arms and facing towards the wall, completely expressionless and doing nothing but trembling slightly.

“Hey Zoe? Are you okay?” Ashley asked, as she began to carefully step around the traps. Zoe did not respond in any way; if was as if she didn’t even notice them.

Once Ashley had gotten next to the bed, she turned around to Ted, who was almost through the maze of traps himself. “What’s wrong with her? This whole thing is weirding me out.”

“It’s a palace,” Ted said again. He stepped around the last one and looked up at Ashley. “A palace of distorted desires. That’s not your friend; that’s a shadow. These things can exist in this world, and they can be far bigger and more dangerous.”

“Distorted desires?” Ashley said, squinting her eyes at him. “Come on, I know Zoe. There’s not a malevolent bone in her body.”

Ted shook his head. “He’s getting out the marrow in her backbone.”

Ashley ignored him and sat down on the bed. “Zoe? Come on, talk to me.”

Zoe seemed to notice her for the first time; she looked directly at Ashley and looked surprised. “Ashley? Is that you?” Her face flushed. “No…”

“Zoe, it’s me. Ashley. You know, from band class,” Ashley said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Zoe shook her head. She went back to the fetal position and started trembling again. “It can’t be you. You need to get out of here.” 

Ashley signed heavily. “She’s gone totally cuckoo, Ted. I think I did something wrong when messing with that stupid journal.”

“It’s not right, Ashley. Go somewhere else,” Zoe said again, staring at the wall like before. 

Ashley peered into Zoe’s face. “Hey Ted, I think you’re right. Her eyes are silver here; they’re usually blue.” Suddenly, Ashley jumped up off of the bed, and started making her way over the traps again.

After they had both made it out of the room, Ashley opened the door to on the other wall, which led into a bathroom. She looked at herself in the mirror for a few seconds.

“My eyes are still green, Ted,” she observed. “That means I definitely did something wrong here…”

Ted didn’t have anything to add, so the two made their way out of the house.


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

Sunday, September 7, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

The next afternoon after church, Ashley and Zoe were both on Ashley’s bed, huddled around Ashley’s laptop.

Zoe looked confused. “So… what just happened was… I don’t get it. How did he just…”

Ashley shook her head. “Don’t try and question it. It’s just a nonsense ending they tacked on because they didn’t know there was going to be a season 2.”

Zoe sat up and yawned. “Let’s take a quick break… I need to use the bathroom.”

While Zoe was away, Ashley fiddled around with the laptop a little bit, and then got up herself. She went over to the bedside table, and pulled out the journal from the top drawer. It had been left open inside the drawer. 

She looked at the first page.

Property of:

~~ Alyssa Shannon Lee ~~

~~ Kyle Malachi Simpson ~~

Ashley Viola Davis

Zoe Erica Parker

She got out a pencil, struck through Zoe’s name, and then turned the journal to the next page. She set it on top of the bedside table. 

When Zoe walked back into the room and sat back down on the bed, Ashley sprung a question on her.

“Hey Zoe. By any chance, did you have any strange dreams last night?”

Zoe bit her lip. “Now that you mention it, I did.”

Ashley’s eyes widened slightly. “What happened in it?”

Zoe rubbed her chin. “The band was having a rehearsal… at my house.” 

Ashley sighed very softly. “Ah. That’s not too weird.”

“Well, in the middle of rehearsal… Lord Voldemort- you know, from Harry Potter…”

“Yes, I’m familiar with Harry Potter. Continue.”

“Well, Voldemort walked into the house and then destroyed my house right in the middle of rehearsal! Then my parents forced me to clean it up.”

Ashley smiled faintly. “That’s still not too weird, as much as that sucks.”

Zoe looked at her. “Why? Have you ever had any weirder dreams?”

Ashley leaned back against the pillows on her bed. “Well, since you asked, I guess I have to share now…”

For the next ten minutes, Ashley told an epic saga of a dream. She was performing in a futuristic city with a jazz band, when suddenly aliens invaded and took over the entire planet and turned it into an Orwellian police state. Ashley was unable to find any of her friends or family after the invasion, so she commit suicide as a protest against the regime.

“Wow,” Zoe said after she was done. “You should, like, turn that into a book.”

“I don’t know, Zoe,” Ashley replied, “Dreams aren’t always the best material for books… As Stephenie Meyer has taught us.”

Zoe giggled. “Yeah, I’m not the biggest Twilight fan either,” she said.

As Ashley picked up the journal and the pencil from her night stand, Zoe continued.

“I mean… I don’t get why Bella likes Edward. He’s kind of creepy. But everyone else says “Oh, well, Edward’s so hot!” and I just… don’t really get it. You know?”

Ashley nodded. “Trust me, I get it. Sorry to change the subject, but I need to ask you for a favor.”

“What’s up?”

Ashley put the journal down in front of her. “Can you write you name on this blank page for me?”

Zoe furrowed her eyebrows, but picked up the pencil and wrote anyway. “I guess there’s no reason not to,” she said.

Ashley looked at her name, surprised. “Wow. You have really neat handwriting.”

Zoe blushed slightly. “My parents were big on that when I was younger…”

Ashley put the journal back down in the drawer, still facing open, then closed it. “Anyways, let’s move on to season 2 before it gets too late…”

* * *

Once again, Ashley woke up in her bed in the Metaverse.

This time, she wasted no time, and headed straight out for the street.

Ted was a little more proactive this time, and met her by the street in front of the church.

“Alright, Ted, take two,” Ashley said, and she started off in the same direction. “Let’s see if I got it to work this time.”

This time, they found Zoe walking down the sidewalk of her street in her pajamas, looking very frightened. When she saw Ashley, she stopped in her tracks and stared at her with wide eyes.

“Ashley? Man, every time you appear in one of my dreams, it gets weirder!”

Ashley walked straight up to her, grabbed her by the shoulder, then lowered head head to peer into Zoe’s eyes. “Blue eyes,” she commented. “I think this is really her.”

“What are you talking about? What’s going on?” Zoe said. She once again looked a little frightened. 

Ashley grabbed her hand and started leading her back to her house. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll explain everything in a little bit.”

Zoe went along with her, but then she eyed Ted. “Ashley? What is this thing following you around?”

Ted tipped his hat. “Howdy, pardner. The name’s Ted.”

Zoe clearly wasn’t expecting his deep, southern voice, and started giggling uncontrollably.

Ashley led the other two back to Zoe’s house. This time, it looked just like everything else in the world.

“Zoe’s house looks normal. That’s a good sign.”

“No it doesn’t, Ashley!” Zoe said. “It’s all dark, and veiny! It’s really spooky!”

“Well, that’s relatively normal,” Ashley said. 

The three entered Zoe’s house, and Ashley and Zoe sat down on the couch in the living room.

“Alright, Zoe. It’s time you learned everything. Listen closely.”

Zoe was clearly nervous, but she nodded.

“So… first of all, this isn’t a dream. This is all happening in some sort of parallel world that isn’t affected by time.” 

Zoe eyes widened. “You mean like… The Spirit World? From Avatar?” She pointed at Ted. “Is that guy a spirit?”

“Well, to be honest, I’m not really sure  _ what _ he is,” Ashley said. “He used to be some sort of ruler, and he’s following me around because he wants me to help him defeat some evil person who stole his throne.”

“Wow!” Zoe said in awe. “We should turn this into a book… or a fanfic, or something.”

Ashley smiled at her. “Oh, Zoe... if only you knew.”

“What do you mean?”

Without warning, Ashley pinched Zoe’s upper arm. 

“Ow!” Zoe exclaimed, holding the spot with her other hand. 

“Sorry about that. I just had to prove that this isn’t a dream.”

“It’s okay…” Zoe shivered. “So… wow. This is really happening, then.”

“Yep.”

“Ashley… How did we  _ get  _ here?”

“Remember last night, when I asked you to sign your name in that journal?”

Zoe paused. “Yeah. I thought that was kind of odd…”

“There was a reason behind it, though. Writing your name in that journal somehow allows one to come here.”

“Oooh.” Zoe frowned. “Why didn’t you just tell me about all of this then?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me,” Ashley said simply.

Zoe thought about it. “Yeah… that’s fair. I probably wouldn’t have.”

Zoe put her hands on Ashley’s armor. “Where’d you get the outfit and the sword?”

Ashley frowned. “I’m not entirely sure… I remember putting it on to fight these weird coyotes at our church.”

Zoe got up from the couch. “Let’s get one for me! Walking around in my pajamas while you’re armed like Joan of Arc makes me feel vulnerable.”

Ashley got up right after her, and the three exited Zoe’s house, and begun walking along the streets towards their church.

As they walked, Zoe continuously looked around. “Why does everything look so weird?” she questioned.

Ashley shrugged. “I don’t know. I tried to ask this guy that, and he wasn’t a lot of help.”

“What do you mean? Does he know anything about the Spirit World?/”

“I think so. But every time he says anything to me, it’s said in this weird, overly complicated way. It’s difficult to glean anything from him.”

“You mean like how your dad talks?” Zoe asked.

“Even moreso. I figured out that the best way to get information out of him is to ask simple questions, and ask him to nod yes or shake his head no, or answer using short phrases.”

"Ooh! Let me try!”

She looked over at Ted. “Ashley said that you were a ruler. Are you royalty, or were you elected?”

Ted just shook his head.

“So… neither? Did you take power by force?”

Ted nodded.

Zoe tugged on Ashley’s arm. “Ashley, what if he’s a dictator? Should we be helping him?”

“We can trust him, Zoe,” Ashley said.

“But… how do you know?”

Ashley paused for a few seconds. “I have my reasons… let’s just say, this isn’t my first time dealing with weird supernatural stuff, and I have reason to believe that us being here is no accident.

“Wow,” Zoe said, looking impressed. “You mean you have… experience with this?”

“Well… not a lot,” Ashley admitted. 

They walked out of Zoe’s neighborhood and arrived at the church. They were approaching the side door where Ashley originally entered, when Ashley stopped and turned around.

“Zoe, I need to take a moment to debrief you before we go in there.”

“O-okay.” Zoe looked nervous again.

“First of all, I don’t want you to be afraid. There’s no chance of us being permanently harmed here.”

“Oh? That’s good…”

“But, you should still try not to die, because if we are defeated here, we can’t come back.”

Zoe bit her lip. “That’s a lot of pressure…”

“It is. But we can’t be physically harmed, that’s what’s important. Secondly, the last time I was here, I was attacked by a group of wild animals. I only made it out of that alive because of Ted here. I don’t know where they came from, so be on your guard.” 

“It’s simple- you’re not gonna be five feet from me if I can help it.”

The three entered the church sanctuary through the same doors that Ashley took before. Zoe was sticking very closely behind Ashley and was looking around constantly. Ashley, however, was just as cool as always.

As Ashley and Zoe walked down one of the aisles, they heard a thunking sound behind them. Zoe yelped, jumped about a foot in the air, and clung to Ashley instinctively from behind.

Ashley spun around to face the front of the sanctuary, only to find that the noise was Ted running into one of the pews. He was now sitting on the ground, rubbing his head in his hands.

“I think that armadillo has a few screws loose,” Ashley said.

Zoe breathed a sigh of relief. Then, she seemed to realise what she was doing and abruptly put her arms back at her side, blushing slightly. 

The trio checked the main entrance and all around the sanctuary, even going up into the balcony area, but they didn’t find anything of note; no weapons or armor, but also no enemies. 

Finally, they went up on the stage, near where the stained glass was.

“Are you sure this is where you got your stuff?” Zoe questioned. “There doesn’t seem to be anything here.”

Ashley was looking at the glass. “After Ted attacked those coyotes… they disappeared through here…”

She walked up to it and put her hand on the glass, but it was solid. However, at her touch, suddenly a bright pattern showed up on the floor: six white circles.

Zoe was startled again. “What did you just do? The floor…”

“Um… I don’t know,” Ashley replied. She looked around. “Hey, where did Ted go off to?” 

They looked around a little bit, and found Ted at the foot of the staircase leading up to the stage. He was laying on the floor with his hands on his head, and making a pained expression.

“What’s gotten into you?” Ashley asked, as she jumped down next to him.

“He doesn’t look well,” Zoe said. She walked down the stairs and scooped up Ted into her arms.

“This place…” Ted said, writhing in Zoe’s arms.

“This place what?” Ashley asked. “Whenever we were last here, you were doing totally fine. Well… as fine as you always are, anyway.”

“Let’s get him out of here,” Zoe said, looking down on the armadillo with a very concerned expression. They headed back outside.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

Monday, September 8, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

The next morning, when Ashley walked into the practice room in the back of the band hall, Zoe was inside, staring at the wall with a vacant expression.

She looked up at Ashley when she walked in and immediately got nervous. “Hey Ashley… um… did, uh…?”

Ashley sat down next to her. “Yes, what happened last night with the talking armadillo was real.”

Zoe leaned back against the wall with wide eyes. “Wow… so it was real…”

The two sat in silence for a few minutes, before Anja walked in. When she saw the other two sitting there, she grinned at them widely. “How do you do, fellow kids?” She said, before breaking out into giggles and sitting down across from them.

Ashley stared at her. “Uh… Anja, are you okay?”

Anja suddenly looked irritated. “Oh come on. It’s a meme. You’ve never seen that before?”

“Don’t get cranky with me” Ashley retorted. “I don’t spend enough time on the internet to know about that stuff.”

Anja didn’t say anything, she just got out her cell phone and started furiously typing something on it.

* * *

 

During after school band rehearsal that day, Ashley had to take a break part way through to use the restroom. After she was done, she walked out of the girl’s restroom, and was about to head back for the practice field when she saw Anja sitting down further along down the hall.

Ashley sighed heavily, and walked over to where Anja was sitting.

Anja was simply sitting down, hunched over, looking at her phone like she was about to fall asleep.

“Hey Anja,” Ashley said, standing over her with her hands on her hips. “What are you doing? You should be out there practicing.”

Anja slowly looked up at her, leaning her head back against the wall. “Ashley. There’s something I wanted to tell you.”

“Alright. What’s up?” She moved her hands to her thighs and leaned forward.

Anja put her phone and away and put her head and arms on her knees. “You may have already heard this through rumors, but… I’m bisexual.”

Ashley blinked. “Um…”

“That means that I’m attracted to both sexes. I’m-”

“Anja, I know what being bisexual is,” Ashley said. “Why are you telling me this?”

Anja shrugged halfheartedly. “Does it bother you? Having a friend who is into other girls?”

“I… honestly really don’t care.” Ashley finally sat down in front of her. “Let’s just say that I wouldn’t be one to be judgemental about that, and leave it there.”

Anja looked at her curiously through her still drooping eyelids. “Sorry for the weird question,” she said. “I had to ask for a friend.”

Ashley looked at her carefully. “What has been with you today?” she asked. “You’ve been even more all over the place than usual.”

Anja sighed. She shivered slightly. “I’ve just got… it’s been an odd day.”

Ashley stood back up. “Well, um… Whatever’s happening, I hope it works out. Just try and be back outside soon.”

Ashley went back to practice. Anja just got out her phone and went back to what she was doing.

* * *

 

Once again, Ashley met Ted by the street in front of the Methodist Church.

“Well, Ted,” Ashley begun, “This is a bit awkward, but I actually didn’t mean to take us here tonight. I’m not sure what happened.”

“The methods of activation still seem unfounded,” Ted said.

“Yeah, well… Let’s go find Zoe and try to figure this out.”

They went back to Zoe’s house. This time, they found Zoe waiting for them in her front yard.

Whenever Ashley and Ted arrived, Zoe sat up from the steps leading to the front door. “Are we going to have to come here every night from now on?” Zoe asked, clearly concerned.

“I don’t think so,” Ashley replied. “Before I brought you in here, I hadn’t been in this world for a couple of days. Honestly, I’m not sure why we were taken here tonight.”

Zoe bit her lip. “Do you think it’s just random? Like that journal has whims of its own?”

Ashley shook her head. “Jeez, I hope not,” she said. “Normally, it would bring us here every time I wrote something in it, but… I didn’t write in it last night.”

“Well… while were here, maybe we can do some exploring?” Zoe suggested tentatively. “Try and learn more about this place?”

“That’s… not a bad idea,” Ashley said.

They decided to walk the other way across Zoe’s neighborhood instead of towards town. They had only walked a few blocks, when they ran across something very unusual.

The high school that both Ashley and Zoe went to looked different from the rest of the world; the entirety of the building was homogeneously colored a dark shade of blood red.

“Ashley, look! It’s our school!” Zoe said, pointing it out.

“Whoah, that’s not a very fetching color,” Ashley said. “Is it weird that I want to go check it out?”

“Yes…” Zoe said, grimacing. “I don’t like the feeling I’m getting from that place.”

“Well, we were walking around to learn more about the Spirit World. Maybe this’ll teach us something.”

Despite her anxieties, Zoe ultimately went along with her. The three made their way to the front door… or what would have been the front door. All that was there was a hole that was torn in the wall. All of the other places where doors normally were were solid wall.

“You think that somebody’s been here?” Ashley asked, as they walked inside.

Inside, everything was the same dark red as the outside; however, the walls seemed to have a mild glow, allowing them to see their way around.

The trio walked past the library and started down the very wide hallway to the right, away from the cafeteria.

“Ashley… let’s not stay here too long,” Zoe said. “I think I’m going to be sick if I have to keep looking at this awful coloring.”

“Ted, have you ever seen a place that looks like this?” Ashley asked.

Ted shook his head.

They continued down to the end of the building, where the gym was to their left, and a bunch of classrooms were to their right, as well as a staircase that led to a second story in front of them. The staircase was open, so that one could see the top of the stairs from the middle of the hallway through the handrail.

Suddenly, Zoe froze in her tracks. “Ashley? D-do you hear that?” she asked.

Ashley turned around. Coming from further along the hallway was a repeating thumping sound, that was accompanied by the sound of crackling electricity.

“I- I don’t like that sound,” Zoe said. She was cowering behind Ashley now and trembling.

“Ted, don’t let anything happen to Zoe or I’ll skin your hide,” Ashley said, before she strode forward towards the footsteps, unsheathing her sword.


	9. Chapter 9

“A-Ashley, do… Do you know h-how to use a sword?” Zoe asked as Ashley walked away. 

“I’m a quick learner,” Ashley said. “Besides, whatever this is could be friendly. You never know.”

Zoe didn’t look convinced. Ted drew his revolver and stood in front of Zoe defensively.

In front of Ashley stood a massive feline creature. It stood ten feet tall even on all fours. It resembled a large jaguar, except with a wider face, and two long, sharp fangs. Its fur was a darker shade of orange closer to red, but still with the same black spots. The most distinctive difference was the arcs of electricity coming from its paws every time it took a step.

“Hey Zoe,” Ashley shouted while still facing forward at the jaguar. “Did you ever play Pokémon as a kid?”

“N-not the games, but I sometimes watched the show w-with my brothers.”

“Do you remember that electric one that looks like a saber tooth tiger?”

Zoe clapped her hands over her mouth, and fell down to the floor in despair. “There’s no way out of here… what do we do?”

Ashley and the jaguar had come to a stop about twenty yards apart from one another. The jaguar was growling in a menacing way, as the electricity arced higher.

“Hey now,” Ashley said calmly. “There’s no need to fight. Let’s talk this over like adults, okay?”

The jaguar roared and pounced at her.

Ashley had put the sword up to block the attack, but then she somehow found herself directly to the right of the jaguar as it dove straight into the ground.

Ashley looked up and saw that the yellow-eyed blue ghost had returned, and was now hovering behind her.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up again,” Ashley said.

She took advantage of the jaguar’s moment of weakness to jump out its back. She tried to hack it’s neck off with the sword, but the hide was so tough that it barely drew blood.

The jaguar got up, and its whole body erupted into a charge of electricity that send Ashley flying forward. She landed a few feet in front of Ted with a thud.

“Damn,” she said. “That thing is tough.”

The jaguar charged towards the three of them. Ashley stood back up and brandished her sword, while Ted ran up behind her. Zoe, not having any method of self-defense, scrambled to get to the other side of the staircase for shelter.

Behind Ted appeared a large, robotic-looking man with white and light-blue plating, and a structure behind his back that resembled a harp. The man cast some type of spell on the jaguar, and when Ashley parried the jaguar’s leap, it fell backwards.

“You got one of those too, huh?” Ashley remarked to Ted. While it was still regaining its posture, Ashley slashed wildly at the jaguar’s head and shoulders.

The jaguar batted Ashley with its left front paw, pushing her to the side of the hall and making her nearly lose her balance. Then, it charged its whole body with electricity once again, and this time it arced straight into Ted, knocking him back harshly against the wall. He fell down onto the floor and sort of crumpled into a ball.

The jaguar then turned to Ashley. She begun quickly running up the staircase to the second floor. The jaguar launched another arc of lighting at her as she ran, which she narrowly dodged by sliding onto a flat section halfway up the stairs. 

The jaguar begun running up the stairs after her. She got up and finished climbing the stairs, but by that point the jaguar had caught up to her. It hit her full force with an arc of electricity and sent her flying face first into the wall. She landed on the ground face up, and quickly got into a crouching position. Her sword had been knocked out of her hands and went several yards to the right, near the entrance to a bathroom. She turned around and faced the jaguar, who was prowling up to her, now only feet away. She moved back up against the wall.

“Whelp, looks like I’m just about fucked,” Ashley said. “HEY TED,” she screamed down the stairs. “A LITTLE HELP?”

Zoe, who had been hiding behind the stairs and sobbing the whole time, looked out across the hallway, and saw Ted still crumpled into a ball. Tears still running down her face, she went to the middle of the hallway to turn around and look up.

“No… please no…” she muttered to herself, as she saw the jaguar inching closer to Ashley.

* * *

 

Zoe found herself surrounded by pastel shades of blue, yellow and green, as well as white, not unlike the color scheme of her palace. 

“It’s time to fight, little one,” said a low, authoritative female voice.

“Wh- Who are you?” Zoe stammered. 

“I sense that the time is soon coming when you will no longer be able to hide with your clothes,” the other voice said. “It’s time to rise up, and take back your home before it takes you!”

“I’m scared,” Zoe said timidly. “I don’t know how I’m going to do this...”

“You won’t be alone,” the voice said. “I’m sending an ally…”

In front of Zoe appeared the jaws of an enormous snake. Zoe still trembling, but still walked into the mouth of the snake.

* * *

 

Back in the school, Zoe’s body begun to convulse. A mask appeared on her face. She reached up and tore it off, and screamed in pain as blood poured out of where it was removed. Her body was engulfed in blue fire, and she appeared again from the fire. She was wearing a golden headband over her hair, and a fancy dress that had sparkly gold torso with short sleeves, a flowing white skirt, and a gorgerine with a complex green and red pattern hanging over her shoulders. She was carrying a gold-plated semi-auto shotgun with a thin barrel. Hovering behind her was a topless lady with long, dark hair and a snake’s tail instead of legs, as well as a few golden bands on her arms and neck.

Meanwhile, upstairs, the jaguar was now on top of Ashley, pinning her arms to the floor with its paws and drooling onto her face.

“Ew,” Ashley said, trying to shake the drool off. “Quit drooling on me and just get it over with.”

All of a sudden, the jaguar was sent flying down the upstairs hallway by a huge blast of fire.

“It’s about time, you little gremlin,” Ashley said, getting to her feet and wiping off the drool.

However, it was Zoe who had just finished running up the stairs. She ran after the jaguar

in the direction it had flown, and Ashley ran off behind her.

The jaguar had flown all the way past the bathroom to in front of the lockers. It was trying to get up, when Zoe fired five rounds into it in quick succession to it’s head and torso, knocking it onto the floor again. 

Ashley picked up her sword from the ground. “Zoe?” she said.

Zoe turned around to see Ashley grinning widely at her. “You are awesome,” Ashley said.

“We need to get out of here, fast,” Zoe said. Despite everything, she still looked pale and scared half to death. The two took off down the stairs as fast as they could while the leopard was still incapacitated. 

At the bottom of the stairs, Ashley ran to the other end of the hallway to scoop up Ted, then the two girls made a break for the entrance.


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

Tuesday, September 9, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

ashley 6:48 AM

zoe  6:48 AM

what happened in the spirit world last night it’s all a blur 6:48 AM

i was about to get my face eaten by a giant leopard and you ran up

the stairs dressed like cleopatra and wrecked its ass with a ball of 

fire and then shot it with a gold-plated browning five times and we 

ran away 6:49 AM

whoah  6:50 AM

were you able to figure out why we went there 6:51 AM

i have a theory. I’m going to trying making sure the book is closed

when I go to bed tonight. If we don’t go there again, I’ll assume 

that’s it 6:51 AM

ok  6:51 AM

i’m still not convinced any of this is really happening 6:52 AM

i don’t blame you  6:52 AM

you almost at school? 6:52 AM

yeah. dad’s taking me today and he’s a slow driver. 6:52 AM

he’s also convinced that rock music peaked in the 70s 6:53 AM

i disagree 6:53 AM

see you soon 6:54 AM

* * *

Wednesday, September 10, 2014 A.D.

* * *

Near the front the band hall, three girls were huddled together in conversation. One of them was Diana, from Ashley’s AP Human Geography class, who had light brown hair that she had clearly used a curler on. Another one was a slightly taller brunette (not as tall as Ashley, but close,) and the third girl was an olive-skinned girl with dark hair who was even shorter and smaller than Anja. 

Zoe was walking by the group with a bassoon and an alto saxophone in their cases, when the taller of the three girls waved at her. “Morning, Zoe.”

Zoe stopped and smiled back at them. “Morning, you guys!”

Diana continued on a rant that she had just been in the middle of. “I don’t know who she thinks she is. She thinks she’s better than everyone else.”

“Who are you talking about?” asked Zoe, her curiosity piqued.

“Ashley,” the taller girl explained. “I know that you two are friends, but I have to admit- she can be a real” she mouthed the word “bitch.”

“I just wanted to look through her flashcards in Human Geo,” Diana explained, rosy in the face with aggravation, “but she wouldn’t let me! She was like, ‘oh, that’s not my problem.’” 

“Oh, well…” Zoe blushed and seemed taken off guard. “I’m sure she was… just worried about the quiz.”

“Please, I’ve never seen her worry about anything!” Diana spat. “She has the emotional range of a serial killer!”

“And you know, this sort of thing isn’t too atypical for her,” the taller girl said calmly. “Of course, you seem to have no problems getting along with her.”

“We- She’s really nice to me,” Zoe said, blushing even more. “She always helps me with school stuff…”

“I’m not trying to grill you,” the girl said, smiling coldly. “I just find it… interesting.”

Zoe couldn’t find anything else to say, and simply walked away biting her lip.

* * *

Thursday, September 11, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

At about six in the afternoon, a corpulent man with round glasses was sitting in his living room reading a book. The living room featured a fireplace against the back wall, a battered blue striped couch, a circular cushioned chair right next to said couch, and wooden table that had random piles of books, magazines and papers, and a medium-sized TV sitting on an entertainment center. 

Anja walked in from a hallway to the left of the TV, still wearing a sweaty white t-shirt and basketball shorts.

“Hey dad,” she said, “before I change out of my band stuff, I’m going to go for a walk.”

“Really?” the man said, looking up from his book. “It’s miserably hot outside- almost a hundred degrees!”

Anja shrugged. “I just have some extra energy still…” she made her way for the door.

“Be back soon,” her father called out behind her. “I’m gonna be making dinner before long.”

“I will!” Anja called back as she exited the house.

Once out of the house, she fairly quickly walked down her street. It ended with a roundabout, which she walked past. She went around a forested area until she arrived a small playground surrounded by trees and a few picnic tables. Nobody else was there.

Anja sat down at one of the tables. For a while, she sat there in silence, but after a few minutes she slowly broke down and began sobbing.

“I am such a piece of shit,” she said quietly to herself, as she pulled a plastic bag out of the front of her shorts. It was the same bag that Zora had given her, only now it was about half empty.

However, as she dug into the bag a little more, she slowly calmed down, and became more and more relaxed.

* * *

Friday, September 12, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

It was early afternoon, and a boy with a full head of curly, blonde hair was sitting in his room. The room was quite a mess; the bed sheets were all crumpled up, some of them halfway on the floor, and the bookshelves with littered with books and randomly assorted non-book objects. He had left his backpack sitting on the floor by the door, as well as his trumpet, and there were random articles of clothing strewn across the floor. He was sitting at desk in front of the monitor to his desktop computer in a battered leather chair. He was was intensely looking at something on the screen with wide eyes, when suddenly, the door opened, and he jolted and clicked something with his mouse before turning to the visitor.

“Hey, what’s up Collin?” said an older boy, who also had blond hair, but it was cut much shorter. 

“Ever heard of knocking?” Collin said snarkily.

“Cool it, little bro,” the older boy said. “I’m not trying to intrude on anything.”

“What brings you in here, then?” Collin asked. He quickly got up from his chair, picked up his backpack and threw it onto the bed.

The older boy walked into the room and partially closed the door. “I just wanted to see what you were up to,” he said cheerily. 

“Not much,” Collin said quickly. “Just bored.”

The older boy chuckled. “I guess school must going well if you have time to be bored.”

“School, school, school. That’s all anyone ever talks about anymore.” Collin laid down on the bed next to his backpack. “Mom and Dad… You… Even Zoe now.”

“Well Collin, I have news for ya,” the boy said, still smiling. “Next year, you’re gonna be in high school too. And you’re gonna have to start taking school more seriously.”

Collin rolled his eyes at his brother. “I just miss the days where we could all have fun sometimes… Now all Zoe does is hang out with the redhead girl. Like, seriously, when will they just get married already.”

“Now, now, Collin,” the older brother said, shaking his head. “Don’t joke about things like that. With the direction our culture is going… it’s not as funny as you’re probably thinking it is.” He sighed. “Well, holler if you need anything. And stop biting your fingernails!”

The older brother left the room. Collin continued laying on his bed and chewed his finger nails without shame.

* * *

Saturday, September 13, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

It was afternoon, and Ashley and Zoe were sitting on a school bus. They were heading back to the school from all-region jazz band tryouts, and discussing the results.

“So you’ll be a chance to audition to state?” Zoe asked, her eyes wide. “That’s really good for a freshman…”

Ashley shrugged. “I won’t be too bothered if I don’t make it. My bread and butter is classical french horn, anyway.” She looked at Zoe and smiled faintly. “You did really good too. Making it into the band at all is impressive considering you’ve been playing saxophone for like, less than a year.”

Zoe blushed. “Well… your mom has been a great teacher for me,” Zoe said. “Why doesn’t she try and get a job as a band director somewhere?”

“I think she was going to originally,” Ashley said. “But… life happened.”

There were a few moments of silence, during which Ashley didn’t elaborate. Then, Zoe yawned and broke the silence.

“It’s not even that late, and I’m already tired…”

“That’s high school for you,” Ashley said. “If we’re tired just from this… next Saturday’s gonna be rough.”

* * *

Sunday, September 14, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

The next morning, Ashley’s family was driving home from church. Her parents had a casual discussion, while Ashley sat in the back seat and stared out the window.

“It’s actually pretty nice out today,” Ashley’s dad remarked, as he drove. 

“It’s a little cool,” her mom said.

“Eh… it’s still only in the 60s. I wouldn’t call it cool yet.”

There was a brief pause.

“So… what did you think of the sermon today?” Mom asked.

Dad tsked a few times. “I’ve noticed a trend in the way Pastor Palmer has preached recently. I’m not entirely sure if I like it.”

“I think I know what you mean, but you give your piece.”

“Personally, I believe that one of the most valuable things about going to church is the theological insight.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“After all, that’s what the pastor is supposed to be. The resident expert who relays the word to the congregation in a way they can understand.”

“Yeah.”

“A lot of the sermons recently have been… less insightful I feel.”

“Oh yeah.” Mom reached into her purse and pulled out a fun-sized Hershey’s. “I hate to say this, but… it feels like pandering.”

Dad nodded curtly, as Mom popped the chocolate into her mouth with one swift motion. “Rather than giving a message that we can relay to our own lives, to help enrich our own journeys with Christ… he seems to be wanting to preach more of a rallying cry. Railing against wider societal and political issues which most of us can’t do anything about.”

Mom slammed her fists on the dashboard dramatically. “Yes! That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking. Personally, I’m getting a little weary of the bitching about marijuana and same-sex marriage… you know, stuff which isn’t even legal in Texas…”

In the back seat, Ashley’s eyes narrowed very slightly, but she didn’t say anything.

“I don’t guess that many others in the church would share our concerns,” Dad added.

“No. There’s sort of a savage joy to being angry about something.” Mom sighed. “Just drum up a big fuss about some great threat to our existence, that doesn’t even really exist…” 

“I would just like a return to something a little more direct. Save the political discussions for after church…”

Mom sighed. “Well, as long as the crowd is eating it up, I fear that this is going to go on until the election season’s over. I just hope nobody does anything stupid.”


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

Monday, September 15, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

It was lunchtime at school again. Like normal, Nova was not eating off of his lunch tray, prioritizing trying to finish up  _ Kirby: Triple Deluxe _ under the table. 

Ashley and Zoe arrived at the table, and as Zoe sat down, Ashley dropped her tray on the table and put her hands down on the table like she was a police officer interrogating a suspect.

“Nova. Have you seen Anja today?”

“She’s home sick,” without directing his eyes from under the table.

“Sick?” Ashley questioned. “What do you mean ‘sick?’”

“Stomach flu.”

“How do you know?”

“She texted me.”

Ashley finally sat down at the table. “Well, I sent her a Skype message on Saturday, and she never responded.”

Nova just shrugged.

Ashley and Zoe look at each other. 

“I bet there’s something more to this,” Ashley said. “She was acting freaky all of last week. Always moody, never eating, shivering like she was cold.”

“Do you think we should go check on her?” Zoe asked.

“That’s… not a terrible idea, actually,” Ashley said. “Trouble is, I don’t know where she lives.”

“I do,” Nova interjected. “Just give me a- FUCK!” he shouted suddenly, as he died to a boss. “Alright, never mind then.” He closed his 3DS and got out his phone.

“Would you like to come with us?” Zoe asked.

“I would normally, but my dad and I have to appear in- we have to be somewhere after school,” Nova said. “So, uh… tell me how it goes.”

Ashley checked my phone. Nova had just sent her Anja’s address and phone number through Skype.

“Hey, she lives in my neighborhood.” Ashley said. “How about you come home with me after band, and we can just walk there?”

“Okay,” Zoe said. “I’ll let my parents know.”

“Whatever it is, I hope that she can figure it out by Saturday,” Ashley said. “With the Austin band competition happening, you know. It’d be a shame to be down a marcher…”

* * *

 

Later that day, Ashley and Zoe had departed from Ashley’s house towards Anja’s.

“Do you… know what’s going on with her?” Zoe asked pensively.

“Could be any number of things,” Ashley said. “You never really know.”

There was a brief moment of silence, before Zoe asked, “Out of curiosity, how did you meet her? I don’t remember ever seeing her around until this year.”

“Well, she’s a sophomore, so we wouldn’t have known her from junior high,” Ashley said. “I met her during band boot camp. Those of us who didn’t go home for lunch would sort of congregate and eat in the hallway next to the band hall. For the first few days, she was sort of sitting there by herself, and after a while she started sitting by me and talking to me during the lunch break.”

“Why do you she think she did that?” Zoe asked.

“Probably just because she was bored,” Ashley said. “Other than the two of us and Nova, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen her talking to anyone.”

“Oh…” Zoe said. She got a little bit nervous. “I… I don’t think a lot of our classmates like her.”

“I figured as much,” Ashley said. “You know, normally I’m not known for my ability to make friends. But I let her hang around me because… I kind of felt bad for her.”

There was a pause. They had reached the turn onto her street, and had to cross the road. After they crossed, Zoe looked around briefly, and then said, slightly more quietly than before, “I think it’s because… there’s a rumor about her. In sixth grade, there used to be this girl who lived here named Ruth. Well, I’ve heard that once, they were caught kissing.”

“Ah. That would do it,” Ashley said. “That makes sense.”

Zoe went on even more pensively. “I’m not sure how you feel about that, but…”

“It doesn’t change anything for me,” Ashley said. “It’s funny you mention it. A week ago, she randomly told me that she’s bisexual. Came completely out of nowhere.”

“Oh!” Zoe blushed. “Well, if… uh, you don’t mind it that’s… but, uh… I don’t think that many of the people at our church would… uh, want us to be friends with someone like her.”

“You’re right,” Ashley said. “Let’s keep this between us and the Lord.”

They had arrived at a fairly humble-looking house, which looked as if the front yard had not been mowed for a while. The two went up to the front door, and Ashley knocked loudly on it.

“You think anyone’s home?” Zoe asked, as there was a minute or so with no response.

“Where else would she be? She’s sick,” Ashley said. She knocked on the door even more loudly, and shouted, “HEY ANJA! WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

She turned back to Zoe. “We’re not leaving until she answers the door.”

After another minute or two, Anja finally answered the door. She didn’t look her best- she was still in pajamas, and her face was red and puffy. 

“What the fuck, Ashley?” She asked.

Ashley strode into the house without an invitation. Zoe smiled at Anja and asked, “We, uh, heard that you were home sick, and decided to come check on you!”

Anja sighed heavily and beckoned her to come inside. She closed the door behind them.

“All right, Anja,” Ashley said, back in interrogation mode, with her arms over the round chair in Anja’s living room. “Is anyone else home?”

Anja shook her head as she went back in and sat down on the couch. “Nope. Dad is out of town right now.”

“It’s time for you to spill the beans,” Ashley said, squinting at Anja threateningly. “There’s something going on that you’re not telling anyone about.”

Anja sprawled on the couch and looked at the ceiling. Zoe, unsure of what to do, just stood next to Ashley looking slightly awkward. 

“Since when were you the expert?” Anja said. 

“Well, I’ve lived long enough to know that when someone starts acting differently and making lame excuses for the reason why, they’re probably hiding something.”

Anja sighed again. “Okay, Jesus Christ. I’ll tell you.” Anja got up from the couch and slowly led the other two back to her room.

Her room was at the back of a short hallway, on the left side. It didn’t have a lot of furniture, just a bed and a desk with a computer on it, as well as a bunch of office supplies and a stack of cases for 3DS and DS games. There was also a bookshelf against the back wall and there were books and clothes strewn all over the floor. 

Anja sat down on the bed, and leaned forward, putting her face in her hands. Ashley wheeled the chair to her desk out and sat in it backwards. Zoe, once again, seemed unsure as to what to do, and just stood near where Ashley was.

Anja wasn’t in a big hurry to get to the point. She sat there for about a minute before sighing and beginning.

“You guys promise that you won’t judge me for what I’m about to tell you?” Anja asked.

“Just get on with it,” Ashley said. Zoe nodded encouragingly. 

“All right.” Anja leaned back onto her bed. “I’ve been doing marijuana for the past five months or so. At first, it was just every now and then, but over the summer I started doing it consistently.”

Zoe looked surprised, but Ashley didn’t change expressions. “Go on,” Ashley said.

“I started to feel pretty bad about it,” Anja said. “You know, my dad works at a rehab clinic. He always goes on about how, with all of the drugs that kids do, it’s easy to talk them out of it. Because with the others, they mess up your body and do all of this weird stuff. It’s easy to see what’s wrong there. But marijuana, it hardly affects someone physically. But it can still be addictive… and I realized one day that I had totally gotten addicted to it. Plus, it’s obviously illegal, so that didn’t help.”

There was a while where nobody said anything, then Anja continued.

“I thought that my dad would be… so disappointed if he learned what I was doing. So one day, I talked to my dealer. About a week and a half ago. Usually, I go by after football games, because it’s the only time it’s acceptable for me to be out in the middle of the night. My dealer is a woman named Zora Holzmann- quite a name, I know. She’s sort of the center of illegal activity in this town. I told her that I wanted to stop, and she gave me one last bag, on the house, and said that I needed to wean myself so I wouldn’t go through withdrawal…”

Anja sniffled loudly. “Well… after a few days, I started noticing that I was having trouble sleeping and just feeling really weird, so… I did what she said, and took some. Just a little bit less than I normally do.” Her eyes closed, and her face scrunched up a little bit. “But… whatever that stuff was, it can’t have been what she normally gave me. It just made me feel worse… I just felt myself feeling getting more and more strongly addicted to it…”

She sat up, and was wiping her eyes. “So I went by and confronted her again on Friday, and…”

Anja started sobbing. Zoe and Ashley looked at each other for a moment, before Zoe went and sat next to her on the bed and cradled Anja in her arms.

“It’s all going to be alright, Anja,” Zoe said sweetly. “Just tell us what happened whenever you’re ready.”

Anja cried on her for about a minute before continuing. “Sh-She told me that… it was m-my stupid fault that I couldn’t quit…” She sniffled loudly again. “A-And if I told anyone what had happened, she w-would turn me in too, and that I c-could get a life sentence in prison…”

Ashley cut her off. “That’s not entirely true. Someone can possibly get a life sentence for drug use- which is idiotic beyond all belief, by the way- but not until the third offense. And I think that few judges would be heartless enough to give that penalty to a minor, anyway. 

Anja finally calmed down enough to release herself from Zoe’s arms, and shook her head. “I don’t know… ask Nova about Justice Pavia sometimes. He’s a real piece of work.”

Anja got up from the bed, and went over the desk to grab some tissues to blow her nose with.

“Well Anja,” Ashley said in between the loud nose-blowing, “you have our word that we’re not going to turn you into the police. This bitch of a woman isn’t going to get away with this.”

“Thank you for telling us, Anja,” Zoe said kindly. “I promise we won’t tell on you. I realise that this is a really difficult situation for you.”

“What are you two going to do about this?” Anja said. “I mean, I appreciate the support, but…”

“We’ll be in contact with you soon. Try and make it to school tomorrow,” Ashley said. “Come on, Zoe.” Ashley walked out of the room without any more explanation.

“Um… see you later!” Zoe said quickly, before following her out. Anja looked a little bewildered, but just sat back down on the bed with a wad of tissues.


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

Tuesday, September 16, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

The next morning, when Ashley walked into the practice room in the back, Zoe looked up at her. As soon as the door was closed, she asked, “Ashley? I need to ask you something.”

Ashley sat down next to her as usual. “Ask away.”

Zoe, as she does, begun to chew on her lip. “Yesterday… you told Anja that, uh… that woman wasn’t going to get away with what she was doing, right?”

“I sure did.”

“How… do you plan on following up on that?”

Ashley smiled very faintly. “Remember the Spirit World? When we went there last week?”

Zoe looked startled. “Um… I’d have trouble forgetting that, given that part of me is still convinced that was a weird series of dreams.”

“I think I know something that can help us. After you and Mom are done with your lesson today, let’s go for a walk.”

Zoe looked like she desperately wanted to ask more, but at that moment, the door swung open again.

Anja walked into the room. She looked as if she was struggling to walk at all, and was wearing a sweater. She plopped down in her usual spot, and then laid out across the ground.

“Hey, you made it!” Zoe said cheerily.

“I guess so,” Anja said. “I still feel like death.” Anja shuddered. “I hope that this shit wears off by Saturday, or I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to march in the contest…”

“So, you really were sick,” Ashley observed.

Anja nodded slowly. “It’s withdrawal.” She sat up, grimacing as she did so. “I… thank you guys so much for listening to me yesterday. If you two hadn’t shown up, well… I was either going to cave in and go get more weed, or…” Anja trailed off. “Well, thank you both, anyway.”

“That Zora lady can’t touch you, Anja,” Ashley said. “You’re going to be okay in the end.”

Anja just smiled at her, before accidentally falling asleep while holding her knees.

* * *

 

That afternoon, after Zoe was done with her saxophone lesson, Ashley dragged her over to the Methodist Church down the street.

“Why are we here, Ashley?” asked Zoe as the two walked over to the picnic area. 

Ashley ignored her. She left Zoe by one of the tables and headed into the nearby wooded area. After a minute, she walked back holding Ted, and set him down on the table.

Zoe looked totally perplexed. “Ashley… what if… but… huh?”

Ashley sat down at the table and put her hands down in her usual businesslike way. “Alright Ted,” she said, “we have a situation on our hands.”

Zoe sat down across from her. “Is that… Are you sure that’s not just a random armadillo?”

Ashley ignored her. “You said that we can use the Spirit World to affect the behavior of people in this world. I want to know how that works.”

“Enlighten me as to the nature of this venture, for these are powers which can be used for the glory or for the shame of the person,” Ted replied.

“Alrighty, then,” Ashley said.

“Wow… he can talk in this world too?” Zoe asked, eyes open in wonder.

Ted looked at her. “You must be the Empress,” he remarked.

“That’s… very nice of you,” Zoe said, blushing.

“Anyways…” Ashley begun, “one of our friends is basically being blackmailed and manipulated by this one drug dealer lady, and I want to make her pay… or at leave her alone.”

“The one who is the victim,” Ted said, “must be brought into the other world as an ally. The one who is the aggressor, must be brought into the other world as a shadow.”

“What do you mean, ‘as a shadow?’” Zoe asked. 

“Actually, I think I can answer this one,” Ashley said. “I never told you this, but… before you came into the Spirit World for real, I tried writing your name in the book myself instead of having you write it. I tried going to your house, and it was… uh, weird.”

“Weird?” Zoe asked. “How so?”

“It was like, totally different from everything else. It was like some sickening pastel wonder house. And I went into your room, and you were being totally weird and not responding to anything I said.”

“Really?” Zoe asked. “I’m sorry for being rude, then.”

“It wasn’t you,” Ashley said. “I think it was… a shadow. Like Ted said.”

She looked at Ted for confirmation, who nodded.

“Wow… I have a shadow?” Zoe asked, looking off into space.

“Everyone who presides in this world can take the form of a shadow,” Ted said.

“Shadows are a representation of the distorted desires of a person. The more distorted the desires, the more powerful the shadow, and the more menacing the palace.”

“The palace?” Zoe questioned. “Was that why my house looked different, then?”

“I guess so,” Ashley said. “Now, I have a question for you,” she said, turning back to Ted. “Why do we need to get Anja involved in this? Can’t we just go kick this lady’s ass ourselves?”

“The victim is key to defeating a powerful shadow,” Ted explained. “The victim will be able to tap into an extraordinary power. The victim will complete their rehabilitation, and to their oppressor, they will have the power to reform.”

“Well, I suppose that’s settled then,” Ashley said. She was already getting up from the table to walk home. 

“Wait, what?” Zoe said, surprised. “Ashley, I don’t understand what’s settled!”

Ashley was already striding away back home, so Zoe hurriedly caught up to her.

“Tomorrow, we’re gonna get Anja to write her name,” Ashley explained. “On Thursday, we’re gonna strike.”

“But… Do we know what’s even going to happen?” Zoe questioned. 

“What’s going to happen,” Ashley explained, “is that we’re going to kick some ass. But until then... I have some serious homework to do.”

* * *

Wednesday, September 17, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

Whenever Anja came into the practice room the next morning, she was surprised to see that just Ashley was there.

Whenever Ashley saw her, she immediately stood up and started rummaging through her backpack. “Feel any better?” Ashley asked. 

“Um… not really,” Anja replied.

“That’s too bad.” Ashley pulled the journal out of her backpack, opened it to a fresh page, and then shoved a pencil into Anja’s hand. “Sign here, please.”

“Um… why???”

“Just do it!” Ashley said aggressively. “First, middle, last.”

Anja wrote her name on the page.

Ashley looked at the page. “Your handwriting kind of sucks,” she said.

“Um… thanks?” Anja replied confusedly.

Ashley slammed the journal closed and threw the journal and the pencil back into her backpack. “Thanks. I’m going to go practice, don’t bother me.” 

And with that, she strode out of the room. Anja just sighed and sat down on the floor by herself.


	13. Chapter 13

In the Metaverse, Ashley and Ted walked up to Anja’s house to find Anja sitting down on the sidewalk in front of her house, in her pajamas as usual.

Whenever she saw Ashley, she stood up, looking agitated. “Ashley, is this all a dream, or are you into some really freaky occult shit?”

“It’s not _occult_ , Anja,” Ashley said. “Come on, let’s get to Zoe’s house.”

“Is that your obligatory animal sidekick?” Anja asked, gesturing at Ted.

Ted tipped his hat at her. “Howdy. My name’s Ted.”

“Wow,” Anja said, grinning. “That is the most hilariously, stereotypically Texan thing I’ve ever seen.”

The three of them began walking to Zoe’s.

“So, this is why you had me sign me name? So you could sacrifice me to Satan?”

“Anja, shut your whore mouth,” Ashley said. “Satan has nothing to do with this.”

“The shining path,” Ted said faintly.

Anja nodded. “Yep, this is definitely a cult thing.”

“This was a mistake,” Ashley said to herself, her eyes wide open.

The three eventually did make it to Zoe’s house.

“Ooh, you look nice!” Anja said, when she saw Zoe. “I didn’t realize that the last queen of Egypt was white, though…”

“ _Anja_.” Ashley said, turning to her very slowly with squinted eyes. “Can you take this seriously for 2 seconds? Please?”

“I don’t even know what _this_ is?” Anja said, gesturing at the surrounding area. “I mean, at least I don’t feel like shit anymore, but I have no idea where I am.”

“We’re in the Spirit World,” Zoe explained.

Anja giggled. “You mean like, from Avatar?” Anja asked. “That’s a TV show.”

“It’s a nickname because we haven’t come up with anything better to call it,” Ashley said. “I’ll explain it to you if you can quit being obnoxious for just a minute!”

“Humor is my natural reaction to uncertainty!” Anja explained, looking offended. “What’s

stuck up your ass, anyway?”

“Ashley, let’s just tell her what’s going on and get it over with,” Zoe said, walking towards Ashley.

“I’d love to,” Ashley said bitterly, “but first Anja needs to agree to keep her damn mouth shut while we’re explaining things, because I’m not in the mood for being interrupted with a pop culture reference every half of a sentence.”

“You guys are the ones naming things after TV shows,” Anja said.

Ashley brandished her sword and looked about ready to stab her, but Zoe grabbed her and held her back.

“Don’t stab her, Ashley!” Zoe told her frantically.

“Why not?” Ashley replied, “I’m about ready to just let her work it out with that drug dealer by herself.”

“Wait, WHAT?” Anja asked. “This is ab-” suddenly, she gasped, and started walking backwards diagonally, eyes suddenly fixed on something behind Ashley and Zoe.

The other two turned around, and saw a small horde approaching behind them. There were three of the exact same type of coyote that Ashley saw way back in the church, as well as two blood-red wasps that were the size of a human head.

“Why does everything have to be red here?” Ashley asked.

Zoe gulped.

“Um… guys,” Anja said, clearly terrified, “did I ever tell you that… I have a crippling fear of wasps?”

“That’s okay,” Ashley replied, her and Zoe taking fighting stances, “you can let the adults do the fighting.”

“Reminder that, even though I’m short, I’m OLDER THAN YOU!” Anja yelled, but she still kept her distance.

Ted ran up to meet Ashley and Zoe. “Noise,” he said.

“Yeah, she never shuts up,” Ashley said. “Anyways, I think we can take these things.”

The three Personas appeared behind them, and the battle officially begun.

The Noise made a run for the three. Ashley stuck her sword straight into the coyote that was charging her, lifted it into the air, and threw it back several feet.

This elaborate action would’ve left her open to an attack from the wasp, except she found herself once again just barely out of the way of the stinger.

“Whoah, Ashley!” Zoe exclaimed, as she knocked the other wasp out of the sky with a well aimed shotgun hit. “H-How’d you dodge that?”

“I think Casper back there is giving me some help,” Ashley explained. “You must’ve missed it when I dodged that leopard.”

Ashley raised her sword, and tried to swat down the wasp, but was unable to hit it. The wasp stuck its stinger straight into her arm.

Ashley winched. “Why the hell did that feel… cold?” She wondered.

Ted, who had just finished one of the others coyotes, hit the wasp squarely in the head with his pistol, and it fell to the ground and dissipated into darkness.

Ashley was then blindsided by the coyote that she had stabbed through the torso earlier, which knocked her backwards.

“Damn!” Ashley said. “That one is still alive after that?”

Zoe finished it off by blasting it away with a fire attack. And with that, it was quiet once again.

“There’s one more coyote, right?” Ashley asked, looking around.

“I got that one earlier,” Zoe said. “I think… we won. But where did they all come from?”

Ashley got up to her feet, rubbing her arm where it was stung. “I think the wasps have ice powers. I was able to feel the biting cold of that sting through the armor. I guess it makes sense, given that metal is a good conductor…”

“That was a grade A ass-whuppin’!” Anja exclaimed from behind her.

The others turned around to see Anja, still in her pajamas, and grinning at them.

“You, uh, didn’t feel the urge to suddenly do anything fantastic while we fought, did you?” Zoe asked.

Anja shrugged. “You guys had everything under control.”

“Alright, let’s get everyone up to speed already,” Ashley said, walking towards Zoe’s house.

“Hey Zoe,” Anja whispered as they followed behind her. “Does she like… have a problem?”

Zoe bit her lip. “I think that… Ashley is really angry about what you’ve been going through,” Zoe said. “When she gets mad, she gets… kind of crazy.”

“Awwh, so she does care about me!” Anja said with a huge smile.

The four funnelled into Zoe’s house.

* * *

 

After several minutes of deliberate discussion, Anja had mostly figured out what was going on about as well as the other two girls did. From there, they begun to ponder the nature of the Metaverse.

“So, we’ve been attacked by weird animals three times,” Zoe explained, twirling her hair as she talked. “Once, when Ashley was in the church, once in the high school, and once just now. Each time in totally different locations. What’s the connection?”

“Negative emotions,” Ted said.

Ashley looked at him and frowned. “Negative emotions? Is that what he said?”

“Well,” Anja said, “that last time, the animals showed up right as Ashley was about to stab me through with a sword.”

“Um… sorry about that,” Ashley said slightly sheepishly.

“But what about the other two times?” Zoe asked.

“Well, back in the church, I wasn’t in a great mood,” Ashley explained. “Being in that place, and being in the Spirit World for the first time by myself… It kind of added up.”

“I’m not an expert, but isn’t church supposed to make you feel _good_?” Anja inquired.

“I wasn’t super happy about the last sermon the pastor had given at the time,” Ashley said. “So that was fresh in my mind.”

Zoe looked like she was concentrating. “Was that the one about the importance of baptism?”

“Um, no,” Ashley said. “The one before that.”

“Well, what about at the high school then?” Anja interrupted.

“I think… that might’ve been a special case,” Ashley said. “That place was really weird.”

“You mean, weirder than everywhere else?” Anja asked sarcastically.

“Yes, actually,” Ashley replied.

“If we’re going to fight Zora tomorrow,” Zoe said suddenly, “shouldn’t we get Anja… um… activated?”

“We’ll probably have to figure it out tomorrow,” Ashley. “I’ve noticed that every time we enter a building and then leave, we get kicked out for the night.”

“Well, maybe if we get into another fight and leave the door open,” Anja explained mockingly, “the wildlife will just pour in here!”

“Yeah… no thanks,” Ashley replied.


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

Thursday, September 18, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

Anja woke up in a field of plain green grass, laying on the ground.

She sat up, and frowned. “What the hell? Am I in an actual dream this time?”

She turned to her right, and saw a huge, futuristic-looking building, and to the right of the building was an enormous rocket ship.

“I already like this one better,” she said to herself. She begun walking towards the space station.

* * *

 

Ashley and Ted had just met up in front of the Methodist Church, but when they turned to head to Anja’s, they saw something bright green in the distance. 

“Ted… what the hell is that?” Ashley asked.

“Palace,” Ted said.

“But… that’s not anywhere near where Anja said her house was,” Ashley said.

The two got closer and closer to the green. Whenever they got to it, they realized that it was nothing other than a field of green grass. There was no transition from the usual dark, veiny world into the grass- there was just a straight line where everything changed, to the point where buildings on the other side were abruptly cut off. Across the green field, was the space station.

“Um… wow,” Ashley said. “Tell you what, let’s split up. You go in there and see if Anja’s okay, and I’ll go make sure Zoe doesn’t get lost.”

Ted nodded and begun running towards the station.

* * *

 

Anja walked in through the impressive sliding doors, and beheld a sickening sight: A huge crowd of teenagers. There were all of all different shapes, colors and sizes, but one thing that they had in common was that most of them looked sick or injured in some way. Some were slouching, some were unnaturally pale, some were even missing limbs. 

“Are you guys… okay? Should I call the police?” Anja asked, watching one kid with no legs pull himself across the floor with his arms. Nobody responded to her.

Everyone was going over to an endless series of racks with astronaut suits hanging on them, and forcefully putting them on. Anja walked over to investigate.

“What is this,” she wondered aloud as she watching the endless army of people getting suited up. “The Black Parade Goes To Outer Space? ...Actually, I would listen the shit out of that.”

She suddenly paused. She saw a hispanic girl approaching one of the suit racks. She was missing an arm, and the wound was still bleeding profusely.

“Hey… you,” Anja said, approaching the girl. “I think we may… know each other.”

The other girl didn’t respond in any way. She took the suit off of its rack.

“Hey, wait,” Anja said, looking concerned. “You’re still bleeding… you’re not really in good condition to be making a trip to space. Why don’t you go home and…” she grabbed the suit from the other girl’s hands- “...get some rest. Actually, better idea- get thee to a fucking hospital!”

There was a sudden change in the mob. Everyone slowly turned towards Anja with blank expressions.

“Uh oh,” Anja said. “I think they’re a hive mind. Fuck!”

The crowd began piling on top of her, and before long her screams were stifled…

* * *

 

Anja found herself floating in the middle of what looked like outer space, surrounded by contrasting blue and pink nebulas. 

“Welp, I’m dead,” Anja said to herself. “I died in the zombie apocalypse. Dad was wrong.”

“You are not dead, young one,” said a deep, wise male voice.

“Where’s that voice coming from?” Anja asked. She tried to spin herself around to see it, but this ended up just making her dizzy and disoriented, so she stopped.

“You are about to face your enemy, and when you do, I will be there to fight with you,” the voice said. “But for now, let your spirit rest, and find peace…”

“I don’t know, that still sounds like I’m dead,” Anja commented. But still, she shut her eyes and tried to float peacefully…

* * *

 

Ted had arrived at the space station. He had to get on his toes to reach the handle, but he managed to open the door. He ran inside the station and begun looking around. He heard Anja’s voice jeering the distance, and begun running under the legs of the horde. 

“Yeah, get a piece of this!” Anja shouted. Ted heard a very loud gunshot, the sound of Anja shouting “FUCK!” and a thud.

Ted quickly climbed up the backs of one of the zombies and got up on his head. He saw Anja in the middle of a large hole in the crowd, now dressed in a pair of jeans, a vest, a pilot’s hood over her head, and a pair of massive goggles. She had been knocked back onto the floor, and was holding a massive sniper rifle that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a sci-fi FPS. Behind her was a blue teardrop with a face.

Ted jumped off of the zombie’s head and summoned his Persona. He cleared away a huge ring of them around Anja with a fire attack. They clearly were not very sturdy, as every zombie within a twenty foot radius of her dissolved into darkness. 

“Dillon saves the day!” Anja called when she saw Ted standing where the zombie hoard used to be. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

The rest of the zombies had gone back to what they were doing, and were ignoring Anja again.

“Where are the team parents at?” Anja asked him, after running up.

Ted beckoned her to follow him, and made his way back to the front door of the space station.

They went back outside, where Ashley and Zoe had just arrived. They were both panting heavily. 

“Hoo… What happened?” Ashley asked.

“Well.. inside that building, there are a bunch of maimed teenagers… and they started piling on top of me! But I was able to break free, and I tried to fight them off with this, but…”

“Wait a sec…” Ashley interjected, walking over closer to Anja and inspecting the rifle closely. “This is a sniper rifle. You fucking dumbass.”

“What?” Asked Anja indignantly.

“You tried to use a sniper rifle close range!” Ashley said, standing back up to her full height. “How is that I’m from  _ California _ , and I know more about guns that you, a  _ Texan _ ?”

“Hey, I know some stuff about guns!” Anja shouted, making fists at her. “I’ve played Call of Duty!”

“But you’ve never fired one before?”

“No! My father and I don’t own any guns, because we disagree with the notion that the response to armed violence is more armed violence!”

“Anja, sweet Jesus Christ!” Ashley said, turning away. “We are  _ not _ having this discussion right now.”

Anja suddenly pointed to something in the distance. “Well, if you want the right to  _ bear arms _ so badly, look over there.”

The gang turned around, to the direction opposite from the doors. A creature was running towards them, growling at them. It resembled a black bear, except it was about twice the size of one. Hovering around it were four of the wasp creatures from the previous day.

“It’s probably being drawn by your bickering,” Zoe commented, looking apprehensive.

“Alright, mini boss time!” Anja said, looking excited.

“It’s still a ways away,” Ashley said. “How about you put your weapon there to better use? Guns seem to be a good way to take care of those wasp assholes.”

“Got it, chief,” Anja said. She took aim and took out two of the four wasps in quick succession.

But by that point, the bear was upon the party. 

The four Personas came out, and Ted immediately cast a spell on the whole party which boosted their defenses. As before, Ashley tried to parry the bears claws his her sword, but she was knocked back by the weight of the bear on her back.

“Well, uh, what were you expecting to happen there?” Zoe asked her. She hit the bear with a strong upward attack by sort of turning the shotgun into a bayonet, shrouded in white aura. The bear was badly hurt and tumbled backwards.

The two wasps were descending down upon Anja. Frightened, she cast a spell which knocked back the wasps, but didn’t do a lot of damage.

However, the wasps were both finished off by two more headshots from Ted.

“Holy shit, little armadillo dude,” Anja said, panting in relief, “I don’t even remember your name, but that’s the second time you’ve saved me in the past five minutes.”

“Ted,” Ted said, before spinning his pistol, adjusting his hat and turning back around to the bear. 

Zoe had taken advantage of the bear being knocked back to fire a series of shotgun shells into it, but the bear had regained its balance, and retaliated by standing on its hind legs and putting its full weight down on Zoe. She was knocked backwards about ten feet and landed on her face.

Ashley was struggling to get back on her feet, but she seemed to be having trouble.

“Ooh! I have an idea!” Anja said. Anja used her to Persona to cast a healing spell on the other two girls.

“How’d you know how to do that?” Zoe asked, getting back onto her feet.

Anja shrugged. “I don’t know. This is all surprisingly intuitive.”

Ashley finally got up, as Ted hit the bear with a blast of fire. The fire seemed to catch, slowly damaging it.

“Nice one,” Ashley said. “Let’s finish this.”

Ashley and Zoe both ran back to the bear from opposite sides, and pulled a routine in which one of them attacked the bear, then the other attacked from the other side right after, and were able to get in a lot of cheap shots. 

The bear got disoriented from all of the switching back and forth, and pounded the ground, creating a shockwave which knocked both of the girls down onto the ground. It was about to pound the ground again, when suddenly its head was blown apart with a bang. It stumbled backwards, and dissipated. 

“I think I’m starting to get the hang of this thing,” Anja said, proud of firing the winning shot. She tried to spin the sniper rifle the same way that Ted spins his revolver, but ended up just dropping it.

The four of them regrouped in front of the doors.

“You two need to stop bickering,” Zoe said to the group, getting suddenly stern. “Especially you,” she said, looking at Ashley.

“Yeah, I know…” Ashley said, sighing. “I’m just… really high-strung right now. I’m not trying to be an ass.”

Anja looked as if she wanted to say something, but seemed to think better of it.

From inside the building, they heard sirens blaring and something being said over the loudspeaker.

“Let’s check it out,” Ashley said. The four went inside.

All of the zombies were suited up, and Zora’s voice was talking to them over the speakers. “Calling all astronauts, it’s time to board,” she said, over and over again.

“There’s so many people, there’s no way that they’re all going to fit onto that rocket,” Anja commented. “Also, I’m not an astronomer, but shouldn’t some of these people be, like, staying behind in a control room?”

“It’s probably safe to assume that the laws of physics don’t always apply in this world,” Ashley said.

The four headed over to where the zombies were going. There were all going out of a series of doors in the right side of the building, right below a huge glass wall. Sure enough, all of them were going inside the rocket, and no matter how many went in in a straight line, it didn’t seem to fill up. 

“Alright, everyone,” Ashley said, turning around to face the rest of the group. “That probably is where Zora is. Whenever we fight her, remember what worked against that bear. Anja’s abilities make her most well suited to keep her distance, watch the skies and offer support. Zoe and I both have weapons that are good in close range.”

“Well noted,” Anja said. “I think we’re all ready to take this bitch down.”

In order to enter the rocket ship, the four had no choice but to queue up in line with all of the zombies. They walked in line up the ramp, and strangely, once they were on the ship, gravity seemed to shift perpendicularly, allowing them to walk along the ship regularly. 

“All astronauts, to your pods!” Repeated Zora’s voice over the speakers in the ship.

“I wanna stab this woman just to get her to shut up already,” Ashley said.

The ship was constantly rotating around a series of pods; small little rooms with chairs and not a lot of legroom. The zombies were, in perfect sync, each getting into a pod, only for the pod to shoot to the back, and another would appear in its place.

“Think we should get into one of those?” Anja asked, looking at the process with interest.

“Um… no,” Zoe said.

The four walked down a long hall, and this was happening across the whole length of the hallway. However, at the very end of the hall was a hatch. They were part way there, when a bunch of red lights went off, and a loud, annoying siren sounded. 

“We are preparing for liftoff!” Zora’s voice said over the intercom.

Ashley begun jogging for the hatch, and motioned the others to hurry up as well.

They turned the circular handle and opened it up, and each of them squeezed through. After going through, the gravity returned to normal, and they had to awkwardly stumble onto the floor.

Zoe closed the hatch behind her. They appeared to be in a sterile-looking white hallway. Behind them was a window. 

“I’m sorry, the design of this rocket just doesn’t add up,” Anja said, walking over the window and looking down. Out the window, she could see the station below them.

They heard the sounds of jet propulsion: the rocket was taking off!

“Get to the floor!” Zoe said, quickly getting on all fours. However, they didn’t seem to be affected by the inertia. 

The four crowded around the window to watch the Earth flying away from them. Curiously, from out the window, it looked totally normal: green grass and trees, little cars driving along the roads…

When they were far up into the air, the bottom part of the shuttle detached. They weren’t out of the Earth’s atmosphere yet, however: the bottom part fell right back down to the ground, and landed in a fiery explosion.

“Holy shit,” Anja said with wide eyes. “Wasn’t that where… everyone else…”

“I guess we figured out why everyone looked like a walking corpse,” Ashley remarked. Zoe shivered.

The team backed away from the window and begun walking down the hallway. Before long, they found a large, white door. They walked through the door, which opened automatically for them.


	15. Chapter 15

The group walked into what looked like a massive command bridge. All around, there were computers in stations with chairs. However, there was only one other person in the room.

Zora was at the very front of the room, standing near a window. Though they had just been exiting the Earth’s atmosphere a minute ago, it looked as though they were now flying through the stars at light speed. She was now wearing an orange and silver pilot’s uniform. 

“Okay, so… now what?” Anja asked. She got her rifle in shooting position and pointed it at Zora’s head. “Should I just take her out now? I don’t think she knows we’re here.”

However, Ted suddenly began frantically jumping up and down and trying to get her attention. “The properties which define us in this world, are not alike for the shadows,” He said. “The end of a shadow will cause a disastrous effect on the physical form.”

“So, I think what he’s saying is, don’t shoot her,” Ashley said, lowering Anja’s barrel with her hand.

“So… what do we do then?” Anja asked.

“Shouldn’t we have… uh… discussed this before we got here?” Zoe asked.

“Locate the treasure,” Ted said.

“Okay… what do you suppose this ‘treasure’ will look like?” Ashley asked him.

“I’ll know,” Ted said.

“So… it’s like pornography, then,” Anja said. “You know it when you see it?”

“Sure. Whatever,” Ashley said. “Let’s just look around this place quietly. We might not need to actually battle her after all. Zoe’s shadow didn’t even notice me until I was literally two feet from her.”

So the four split up and begun quietly creeping around the ship, looking for the treasure. Anja and Ted were checking out the left side, and Ashley and Zoe were on the right. 

On the left wall, Anja found a door, which led into a side closet. Inside the closet was a gigantic sword- it was about thirty feet long.

“Whoa!” she exclaimed softly. “Hey Ted, check this out. You think this is the treasure?”

Ted followed her inside, and shook his head.

“Phew, that’s a relief,” Anja said. “I was NOT looking forward to trying to carry this.”

The two of them exited from that closet and continued exploring.

The team had covered about half of the room, when suddenly Zora begun speaking.

“Eight hundred and forty-four million, nine hundred and seventy-eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty eight,” she said. 

She turned around to face the back of the room, and the four of them all quickly hid behind whatever was nearby.

“That’s how many flyers we had today,” she said. “Of course, it should’ve been eight hundred and forty-four million, nine hundred and seventy-eight thousand, nine hundred and twenty  _ nine _ , but…”

She chuckled to herself for a few seconds. “I know you guys are here. You can come out.”

Nobody moved. Zora sighed and looked down. Suddenly, the four of them were inexplicably right in front of her. 

“Um… hi,” Anja said, looking frightened at this sudden turn of events.

“How did she do that?” Zoe asked, eyes wide with shock.

“One of my little astronauts got away,” Zora said. “Now, I’m a woman who loves numbers- it’s kind of an obsession of mine. But the only thing I dislike about them, is when they go  _ down _ .”

Ashley put her sword up to Zora’s neck threateningly. “Well, you’re going to have to let this one go, or else I’m going to see to it that the number attached your name is the number of years you’ll spend in prison.”

Zora shook her head. “You guys don’t seem to understand. You walked into my domain, which means that you need to play by my rules. And my rules are quite… eccentric.”

“Yeah, we’ve noticed,” Anja commented.

Zora snapped dramatically. The four were suddenly thrown backwards. Each of them were thrown into a dark room. 

“Uh… Ashley? Anja? Ted?” Zoe asked. “I can’t see anything!”

“I’m in here,” Ted’s voice said from a few feet above her. 

“What the heck is this?” Zoe asked. “Whatever it is, I don’t like it…”

Suddenly, the lights turned on, and she found herself in the cockpit of a small space ship, Ted sitting on top of the chair. The spaceship was currently speeding over the surface a planet. It looked sort of like a pre-civilization Earth: The planet was filled with beautiful greenery, and wildlife roamed freely with so sign of humans.

“I must admit,” Ashley’s voice said over an intercom system in the ship, “I was expecting things to get weird when we came here, but… this is on a whole ‘nother level.”

The three of them were all in identical ships, with small cockpits in between two curved, spread, silver wings. 

“Hey, I only see three of us,” Anja said. “Where’s Ted?”

“He’s with me,” Zoe said.

“Alright, question number one,” Ashley said. “How do I get this thing to slow the fuck down?”

“You can’t,” Anja said. “It’s like Star Fox. Haven’t you ever played Star Fox?”

“When I was a kid,” Ashley said. “It’s been a hot minute.”

“Um, guys?” Zoe said. “None of us know how to fly a  _ real _ spaceship, though...”

“Relax!” Anja said. “This isn’t  _ real _ , remember? It’s all a bizarre game being played in the mind of a random lady who sells drugs to kids.”

“Was that… supposed to make me feel better?” Zoe asked, looking slowly more terrified.

Overhead, a huge white ship with two thrusters, one on each side, flew past them, and then turned around to face them.

“Okay children,” Zora’s voice said, “let’s set the record straight. Why did you come here, and what do you want?”

“Um, can she like, hear us?” Anja asked.

“Well, I heard a rumor that you’ve been doing some not-so-good things,” Ashley begun, ignoring her. “My friend Anja here wanted to clean herself of marijuana, and you employed dirty tactics to get her to stay on it, did you not?”

“Oh, what? I don’t get a thank you for handing free pineapple express?” Zora said, then proceeding to laugh evilly. 

“Um… What’s ‘pineapple express’?” asked Zoe softly. 

“I… don’t know,” Ashley admitted. “You know what she’s talking about, Anja?”

Anja shrugged, but then remembered that the others couldn’t see her body language and said “Nope.” 

“Like I said, I don’t like to lose customers,” Zora explained. “That crazy number I said earlier was made up, but everything else I said was true.”

“So, you’re willing to trick and blackmail kids to get more money out of them?” Ashley questioned.

“It’s not even the money,” Zora said. “I just get a certain high knowing that I have people under my thumb.”

Anja chuckled. “Hehe. I see what you did there.” 

“Well, there you go then,” Ashley explained. “That’s why we’re here. Now would be a great time to say your prayers.” 

“Oh really?” Zora said mockingly. “Who exactly do you think you are?”

“You said it yourself, bitch,” Anja said in a gruff voice. “We’re the guardians of the galaxy.”

And with that, Anja charged off towards Zora’s ship.

“Um… what exactly are we going to do?” Zoe asked in a squeaky voice.

“I don’t know, but Anja just Leeroy-d us into the fight, so we’ll figure it out,” Ashley said. And with that, she followed after Anja in her ship. Zoe gulped and followed behind her.

Anja was zigzagging back and forth and bombarding Zora’s ship with quick-firing green lasers seemingly at random.

“All right, what’s the plan, flygirl?” Ashley asked her, as she and Zoe pulled up near Anja’s ship.

“It’s simple,” Anja said. “We avoid all of her attacks, and keep on shooting until we find something that takes damage.”

“But… without a HUD, how do we know when she’s taking damage?” Ashley asked.

“Um… it’ll probably be obvious?” Anja replied.

Ashley just sighed, and begun mimicking Anja’s behavior.

However, two hatches opened opposite from where the thrusters, and begun showering the airfield with mines.

“Incoming!” Anja shouted. She begun ducking and weaving to avoid them, but near the end one hit her right wing.

Ashley managed avoid them all by staying near the ground and moving left and right. Zoe simply panicked and veered really far to the right, and then came back once they were all gone.

“The ship looks pretty undamaged to me,” Ashley remarked. “What’s that thing made of?”

“The hatches!” Zoe shouted. “M-maybe that’s a weak point?”

Once again, the hatches opened to spew mines, and this time the three of them each shot into the openings and to the interior of the ship. The lasers intercepted the mines before they exit the ship and caused them to explode in a chain reaction, causing considerable damage to the thrusters.

“Looks like you’re on to something, Zoe,” Ashley said.

“Hmm… let’s not be doing that now,” Zora said. From the top of the ship, what appeared to be a cannon appeared, a tiny blue orb of energy inside it.

Anja instinctively begun shooting at the cannon, but the orb of energy begun growing bigger. After a while, the cannon fired a beam of energy that quickly moved around in different trajectories. 

The three had to sharpy swerve to try and avoid it, but Zoe wasn’t able to move out of the way quickly enough and got hit.

“Are you okay over there?” Ashley asked.

“I’m still s-standing,” Zoe said. “Well, uh, flying.”

However, while the three were still recovering from that last attack, the mines came back. This time, none of them were able to avoid all of them because they were distracted. Anja’s right wing looked about to fall off.

“Man, fuck this!” Anja shouted. “This is way harder than Star Fox!”

The cannon begun charging again, and once again Anja begun firing at it.

“Hey Anja,” Ashley said. “I don’t think you should be firing at th-”

The laser fired again, and this time it knocked Anja’s left wing off and sent her plummeting down to the planet.

“GOD DAMN IT!” Anja screamed as she fell.

“Don’t get distracted!” Ashley said sternly. “Shoot the hatches when they open!”

The mines begun pouring out once again, and this time, Ashley and Zoe shot straight at the hatches. The thrusters burst into flame, and the ship began slowly falling from the sky, before dramatically crashing into a plains area on the surface of the planet in a huge fiery explosion.

“I think that’s mission complete,” Zoe said, relieved. “Or was it… mission accomplished?”

“Where did Anja go?” Ashley asked. “Did she go down?”

“Um… let’s go check,” Zoe said. Both of them turned around. It wasn’t long before they saw it: Anja’s ship had crushed into a field, and was now sitting there in a burning heap of metal.

Ashley and Zoe hovered above Anja’s crashed ship.

“Do you think she… you know, survived that?” Zoe asked.

“Well, Zoe, normally I’d say no,” Ashley explained, “but it’s only the first chapter, so it seems a little early to be killing off main characters.”

At that moment, something appeared from the wreckage: the head of a massive, blue serpentine dragon with a mane like a lion’s.

“Wow… you really never know what’s going to happen next here,” Zoe said, awestruck.

The dragon emerged from the wreckage, Anja riding on its back near where the head was. 

“THIS IS FUCKING AWESOME!” Anja screamed. “I’M RIDING A DRAGON!”

“We can see that,” Ashley commented sarcastically. 

“Rehabilitation finished,” Ted said. A small white mask appeared in his hands.

“What did you just say?” Zoe asked.

However, at that moment, they saw something approaching from the horizon: A fifty foot tall mecha, that appeared to be made of the same material as Zora’s ship, carrying the thirty foot sword from earlier. It was hovering towards them using a sort of jetpack on its back.

“And… now we’re fighting Voltron,” Anja said. 

“What the hell is Voltron?” Ashley asked. 

“How can we still hear Anja if she’s not in a ship anymore?” Zoe asked, puzzled.

“Enough of the twenty questions!” Zora said from within the mecha. “Your meddling ends now!” 

The robot’s jetpack turned off, and it fell to the ground in a fighting stance.

So the group flew in to confront her, Ashley and Zoe in their small space ships, and Anja now on dragon-back.

“Okay… what’s your strategy for this one?” Zoe asked

Ashley flew in, and begun weaving around the robot and shooting at it randomly.

“Don’t get hit by the sword,” Ashley said simply.

“O-okay,” Zoe said. She apprehensively followed Ashley into the fight. 

Anja cast a spell on the three of them, but kept her distance for a while. 

The two kept on shooting around the robot, dodging the slow moving sword, but couldn’t seem to do any damage. 

“I can’t find any openings in this one,” Ashley commented. “It’s time for desperate measures.”

Anja’s dragon shot a massive blast of ice at the robot’s upper torso. The arms were momentarily frozen in place.

“Good one, Anja,” Ashley said. “This gives me a good opportunity. Stay back, Zoe,” she said.

“Wait… What are you doing?” Zoe asked.

Ashley made a somersault backwards, and then charged towards the back of the robot at full speed. When she was about twenty yards away, she ejected herself from the ship, which hurdled straight into the robot’s back, leaving a huge hole in the armor.

“All right, all you, Zoe,” Ashley said, parachuting down to the ground.

“Okay…” Zoe said, clenching her teeth.

The ice had melted off of the robot, and so it was desperately batting at Zoe’s ship with its sword. Zoe was shooting for the hole in the back, but Zora seemed to have realized what was going on, and the robot was running all over the place to evade her shots.

At this point, Anja swooped towards it on her dragon, which wrapped around the robot’s legs, locking it in place.

Zoe circled around one last time, and blasted the opening in the back. The torso exploded into flame and the robot destabilized… but as it fell, it took one last swipe at Zoe’s ship, and knocked it out. 

“Oh no!” Zoe said, panicking, as the ship hurdled into the ground. “Where is the ej-”

Mid sentence, she was ejected out of the ship, and parachuted down to the ground safely. She was crying as she descended; probably because Ted had clawed her back in a desperate attempt to hang on.

The robot collapsed onto the floor, and Anja quickly flew away as the robot exploded dramatically. 

After it was all over, there was nothing left but a mass of metal and scattered fires. Zora climbed out of the wreckage on all fours. She didn’t appear physically injured, but she was covered from head to toe in soot.

After everyone had landed, Ashley, Zoe and Ted circled around her with weapons drawn. Anja dramatically landed behind them, and pointed her sniper rifle straight at Zora’s head.

“Ready for the third phase?” Anja asked cockily.

“No… no… I yield,” Zora said, coughing. She fell face first onto the ground. 

Anja slid down off of the dragon. “Check mate, then.” 

“The treasure,” Ted said. He ran off towards the burning wreckage. 

“Um… do you think whatever this treasure is survived the crash?” Zoe asked. “Oh, why am I still asking questions like that…” she ran off after Ted to help him look.

Ashley continued standing near Zora, holding her sword near her head threateningly. Anja swaggered up to her.

“Well, you know what Ashley? I’m really glad you took me here… wherever “here” is,” Anja said. “She went down like a Russian whore. Actually, she might literally  _ be _ a Russian whore, I’m pretty sure she’s also a prostitute. But wait… Is ‘Zora Holzmann’ a Russian name? Or is it more German? Hmm…”

Ashley cut off her ramblings by asking, “So, Anja. What are you going to do now?”

Anja’s smile faded, and she got more serious. “Well… tomorrow, whenever I get a chance, I’m going to tell my dad about everything that happened. Well… not the spaceships and shit. I mean with me doing weed.”

“Interesting,” Ashley said. “You think he’s going to be able to help you?”

“It’s not that,” Anja explained. “It’s just… I feel shitty for hiding this from him.”

“It happens,” Ashley said. “There’s some things people don’t talk about with their parents.”

“Well, sure, but… I want to tell him because, he’s my father. I need to trust him. I know he could be mad at me, but it doesn’t matter. When you trust someone, you tell them the truth.”

Ashley looked up at her and frowned, but before she could say anything, she was distracted by Zoe, running back up to them carrying a small blue calculator, Ted right behind her.

“Ted says… this is it,” Zoe said, panting.

“What is that, the calculator you used to make your financial calculations?” Anja asked Zora. 

Zora didn’t say anything. She just kept lying face first on the ground, moaning slightly.


	16. Chapter 16

* * *

Wednesday, April 11, 2012 A.D.

* * *

It was about midday. A thin, Asian-American girl sat on a wooden bench outside of a fairly large middle school. She had a Hello Kitty lunchbox that had contained the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she was currently eating.

On her right side, Ashley walked up. At this point, she was several inches shorter, flat-chested, and looking at the girl with a beaming smile.

“Hi, Aiko!” Ashley said, sitting to Aiko’s right. “I was hoping to find you here.”

“Hey Ashley,” Aiko said nonchalantly.

There was an awkward pause. Then, Ashley sighed heavily.

“I was going to sit with Tasha and Nathan like usual, but… they didn’t… they don’t want me to sit with them anymore.”

Aiko didn’t say anything at first. She ate the last bite of the sandwich and closed her lunchbox. Then she asked, “you don’t have any food. Aren’t you going to eat something?”

“Um… well… I had a big breakfast,” Ashley said, blushing a little bit. “Aiko… do you think that I’m a braggart?”

“Well, I have to admit, you’ve let your skills in band get to your head a bit,” she said, still looking straight forward.

Ashley looked at the ground and sighed again. “Maybe so… it feels like nobody wants to hang around me anymore.”

Ashley sat there for about a minute, just looking at the ground and breathing deeply. Suddenly, she turned to Aiko. “But… you still like me, right?” 

Ashley grabbed Aiko’s hand with her own. Aiko furrowed her eyebrows and said, “Um, Ashley…?”

“Because I like you,” Ashley said very quickly and nervously. “I like you a lot. Like, as more than just friends. And if you…”

Aiko retracted her hand from her, looking shocked. She quickly got up, and just looked at Ashley for about thirty seconds, before turning around and sort of jogging away.

For the next few minutes, Ashley just continued sitting on the bench, staring at the trees in front of her with wide eyes and biting her lip furiously. Then, she got up, and made her way back towards the school.

She was going through the door, and there was another girl approaching from the other direction. Ashley held the door open and said, “Hey Emily!”

The girl glared at her suspiciously and used the other door. “Don’t get too close to me,” she said. 

“Huh?” Ashley said, surprised. She went into the school and looked down the hall. 

Partway down, she saw Aiko talking to a gathering of other students, all of them looking at her.

* * *

 

After school that day, Ashley was at home in her old house. The old house had a noticeably smaller living room, with just a TV, a small couch, and a few chairs and tables against the side wall.

Ashley was sitting on the floor two feet from the TV, sitting with her arms in her legs. Hey face was red and puffy. To the right of her, was an empty container of caramel ice cream with a metal spoon sitting inside.

From another room, she heard the sound of the door opening and closing. 

“Hey Ashley! I’m home!” Her father’s voice said.

Ashley didn’t say anything. Her eyes remained glued to the TV. 

After about a minute, she heard her father’s voice again.

“Hey, didn’t we still have half a tub of ice cream left? Don’t tell me you ate all of it! That’s not good for your teeth.”

Ashley still remained silent.

Her father walked into the room. When he saw her, he froze for a few seconds.

“Well… on the other hand, I’m not a big fan of caramel in ice cream, so I’m glad you finished it off for me.” He slowly made his way over to Ashley, and then kneeled down next to her and begun scratching her back. “Rough day at school?”

Ashley still didn’t say anything.

Her father looked at the TV. “Hey, I think I remember this. What’s this show called again?”

“Hey Arnold,” Ashley said weakly. “It’s an old Nickelodeon show.”

“Hey, it’s not that old!” her father said. “I think this was coming out around the time your mom got married, when we had first moved here… okay, I guess that’s old for you.”

There was a minute of awkward silence, and then Ashley’s father put a hand on her shoulder. 

“Hey, um… If you need to talk, you can always come to your mom and I. You can tell us anything, I promise.”

Ashley didn’t have any response to this.

After a while, Ashley’s father sighed, got back to his feet, and went back into the master bedroom.

Meanwhile, in the TV show, Arnold and an old man with a sort of pilot’s hat walked through a door onto a roof. Everything up there had been trashed, and was lying in ruins. 

“What?” Arnold asked. “This is awful! Who did this?”

The other man sadly begun walking away. “People, Arnold,” he said.

“We can rebuild your cages… and sweep up,” Arnold said hopefully, putting a piece of furniture back upright. “Your birds will come back!”

“Of course they’ll come back,” the man said, standing near the edge of the roof. “They’re birds. I trust them. I understand them. It’s people I don’t understand. You see Arnold… it’s time for me to leave here. Some people are meant to be with people. And some people, like me, are just… different.”

Ashley had stopped watching at this point, as she was sobbing into her knees.

* * *

 

That night, Ashley sat on her knees on the floor of her room, her hands together in front of her.

“Well… It feels like everyone hates me now. All of the others at school do. Even Aiko hates me. If my parents knew about me, they’d probably hate me too. But… You don’t hate me, do You? That’s not even possible… right?”

“I just… I don’t want this anymore. You are the master of healing, right? You can take this away from me, this sickness. Please, Lord, please just take this away from me. I know I’ve been acting like a bad person. I don’t want to be like that anymore. Please…”

* * *

Tuesday, July 17, 2012 A.D.

* * *

 

Ashley and her mom were both in the car going down the freeway. Behind them, the entire rest of the car where they weren’t sitting was packed to the brim with boxes and luggage. A huge moving truck was following behind the car.

“Hey, looks like we’re in New Mexico! Almost there!” Ashley’s mom said cheerfully as they passed by a sign.

Ashley was starting at the window with a blank expression.

“Hey, you’ve been… really quiet recently,” Ashley’s mom states, now looking concerned. “What’s been up with you?”

“I’m okay,” Ashley said. “I’m just tired out from school and from moving.”

“Well… okay,” Ashley’s mom said. She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t say anything else.

* * *

Sunday, August 5, 2012 A.D.

* * *

 

A younger Zoe was sitting in a middle row in the church with her hands in her lap. The service had not started yet, so everyone was standing around and talking amongst themselves. 

A mousy, older woman with hair very similar to Zoe’s came and sat next to her.

“Guess what Zo?” The woman said in a southern accent. “I just met some people who moved here not too long ago, who are here at our church for the first time. And they’ve got a daughter about your age, who also is in band.”

“Oh really?” Zoe replied timidly.

“Yeah! Why don’t you go introduce yourself? Maybe you’ll make a new friend.”

She gestured towards, the back, where Ashley was sitting down, looking into space with a dull expression.

“I don’t know Mom,” Zoe said. “She looks kind of scary.”

“Scary? Oh, come on Zoe,” her mom said, now getting stern. “Now you’re at the age in your life where you ought to be learnin’ how to talk to people.”

“O-okay,” Zoe said nervously. “I’ll go say hi.”

Zoe walked around the back and over to where Ashley was.

“Um… hello!” she said very nervously, extending her hand. “My name is Zoe! I heard you’re new here!”

Ashley looked up her, and then just looked straight into Zoe’s eyes for about five seconds. Then, she smiled very faintly and took her hand.

“My name’s Ashley,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”


	17. End of Part 1 and Author's Notes

* * *

Saturday, September 20, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

Hey Anja.

This is Zora. I just wanted to let you know that you’re going to have to take a your commitment to quit drugs a little more seriously. I’m not gonna be selling anymore. So, sorry.

Don’t worry about me. I have other ways of making money. But let’s just say I have a beef with my suppliers and I no longer feel comfortable working for them.

And, I’ll admit that I’ve been awful to you. You were right about what I gave you a couple weeks back, it wasn’t the normal stuff.

And don’t worry about any legal consequences. Feel free to talk to your folks and anyone you need to for help. I have incriminating information about my suppliers, which I am planning on providing to the police in exchange for immunity for any underage buyers of my wares.

You probably don’t have anything to worry about anyway. What I said to you about life sentences and all that, I was just being a jerk to try and get you to keep doing it. If you go to a responsible adult for help to get off of drugs, you probably won’t be prosecuted anyway.

And please don’t just buy drugs from someone else. Honestly, you’re way too young to be getting messed up in this kind of shit. Just focus on finishing school for now.

In all seriousness, I am truly sorry about everything. Have a good life.

* * *

 

It was the morning of the band competition. Ashley was dressed in the under-uniform band clothes: a school t-shirt and basketball shorts. She was very meticulously brushing her hair in the bathroom.

There was a soft knock on the door. “Don’t be too much longer,” Ashley’s mom said. “We gotta leave in about five minutes.”

“What time is it?” Ashley asked, still brushing her hair.

“7:24,” her mom said.

“Oh shiiiii… oot,” Ashley said. “I’ll be right out.”

* * *

 

Ashley got onto one of the many school busses they were taking to the competition, and found Zoe in a seat near the front.

“Seen Anja yet?” Ashley asked Zoe as she sat down next to her.

Zoe shook her head. “She was supposed to talk to her dad about it yesterday, right?”

“Yeah.” Ashley looked around and noticed that Zoe had brought a blanket, which was sitting folded on top of her backpack. “What’s the blanket for?” She asked.

“In case it gets cold on the way back,” Zoe said. She picked the blanket up and rolled it up, revealing the design of Ariel from The Little Mermaid.

“Cool. That’s my favorite Disney movie,” Ashley said.

“Oh really?” Zoe said. “Mine’s Lilo & Stitch.”

Anja walked onto the bus and took the empty seat behind them.

“How are you feeling?” Zoe asked.

“Well enough to be here, at least,” Anja said. “So… my dad actually wasn’t mad. He was just really worried about me… and said that he was glad I told him.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Ashley said. “I’ll be that was pretty scary.”

“Also, I got a letter this morning from Zora,” Anja explained. “She says she’s not selling drugs anymore… and apologized for what she did. And she’s reporting her dealers to the police or something?”

Zoe gasped. “You think that happened because we found that treasure?”

“Come to think of it, Ted never really fully explained it,” Ashley admitted. “But I’m pretty sure that’s it.”

Nova got onto bus and took the seat next to Anja. “You get the Smash 3DS Demo?” he asked.

“Oh, you know it,” Anja said, grinning. “By the way, you two… I texted Nova about what’s going on, so you don’t have to hide stuff from him. You know… other than the dragons and robots and shit.”

“The WHAT?” Nova said incredulously.

“I was just joking, dummy!” Anja said, but she winked at Ashley.

* * *

 

After the Enchantment City High School’s performance, most of the other students were sitting in the stands waiting for the remaining bands to finish up. However, Ashley sought a private conversation with Zoe, and led her underneath the stands.

They went past the bathrooms and found a corner where the concession stands would’ve normally been during a football game. However, now, they were closed, and there was nobody around.

“Okay, I think this is good,” Ashley said. They both sat down on the ground.

“Is this something… um… private?” Zoe asked.

“Yes, extremely,” Ashley said. She begun in a low voice. “Now, Zoe, you may be shocked to hear this, but you’re my best friend. You pretty much have been since we met back when I first moved here.

Zoe nodded. She looked very pensive.

“But there’s some things that you don’t know. And I want to tell you because… I don’t think it’d be good for me to hide this any longer than I have been.” She breathed in and out slowly. “Now, before I say this, I just want to precede it with a disclaimer. Try not to freak out. I’m not telling you this because I want to get you to do anything. I’m just telling you because… it’s getting too difficult to bottle this up. And whatever you do with this information… it’s totally up to you. Don’t feel pressured.”

Zoe nodded again.

Ashley breathed out again. Both of their phones buzzed, which they ignored. “Well. I kind of… have a massive crush on you. I have for a while now.”

Zoe’s eyes opened wide. “Ashley…”

“Once again, don’t freak out. If you don’t feel the same way, that’s…”

She was cut off in the middle of her sentence by Zoe leaning in and kissing her on the lips.

After several seconds, Zoe backed away, her face flushed red. “Um, sorry about that. I’ve never kissed anyone before. Ashley, I… I do feel that way back towards you.”

“Huh,” Ashley said, smiling widely at her. “Really.”

“Yes,” Zoe said. The two embraced each other for a few moments, before both of their phones went off again.

“Okay, what the hell is that?” Ashley wondered. “Sorry, this is going to bother me.” She got out her phone, to find that she had been added to group chat on Skype called _The Satanism Club_.

Ashley sighed heavily and opened it.

Hello all. You have been graced with permission to enter an exclusive

group chat. The subject shall be thusly as described: 90% memes, with

occasional discussions of whatever, including what our next occult sting

operation will be.                                 3:23 PM   

Have you two made out yet?                            3:25 PM

Ashley looked up at Zoe, who was also checking her phone.

“Um… is she like, spying on us?” Ashley asked.

“Actually… I told her that I liked you a few weeks ago,” Zoe explained.

“Oh really?” Ashley said. “I didn’t think you two were close.”

“We weren’t,” Zoe said. “But… whenever I started feeling that way… I was scared, and I figured maybe she’d, um, know stuff about…” Zoe sort of trailed off.

“Psychology?” Ashley suggested.

“Um… yeah. Listen,” Zoe said, “If we’re going to be… um… a couple, we have to keep it a secret.”

“Oh yeah, no question about that,” Ashley agreed. “I’ve been in Texas long enough to know what it’s like here.”

The two eventually went back into the stands, during the Ronald Reagan High School performance. They sat back down next to Anja and Nova. Nova was playing the Smash demo, but Anja was just smirking at them.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Ashley said, annoyed.

“I know what happened down there,” Anja whispered.

“Yeah, okay, what you think happened happened,” Ashley admitted. “But it’s a secret. Like, top secret. Got it?”

Anja mimed zipping her lips together.

“Wait, what’s a secret?” Nova asked.

* * *

 

The band was out there late at night, due to the fact that they managed to make finals. It was already dark when the busses headed back home for Enchantment City.

Even though it was night, it still was barely any cooler than it was while the sun was out. However, that didn’t stop Zoe from letting Ashley share her blanket so that they could secretly hold hands on the way home. They aren’t out of the woods yet, but for that night they got to be happy, talking to each other the whole way home. If the truth is to be told, Ashley hadn’t smiled that much in quite a while.

* * *

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 A. D.

* * *

 

Hello everybody, this is Optimistic Outsider.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading my story.

If you enjoyed what I have so far, I’m planning on releasing Chapter 2 in late March.

If you have any questions, or comments on how I can improve later chapters, feel free to leave a review here on AO3, or message me on Tumblr, which is linked on my profile. I’m not online all the time, but when I am I’ll make sure to get back to you.

Until next time.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 2: Two Girls With One Big Secret**

* * *

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 A.D.

* * *

 

It was a warm summer’s day in New Braunfels, and two teenagers were sitting outside on a back porch. They were under a large screened area which contained a dirty glass table and chairs. In the corner sat a dilapidated hot tub.

There was Nova, who at this point had tidy looking short hair, as well as a tall, overweight girl with her brown her in a ponytail. They were both sitting at the table, looking at their respective Nintendo DS systems. The girl was smirking, while Nova was looking at his DS with a furious expression.

“Are you shitting your pants yet?” The girl asked.

“No!” Nova exclaimed. “That’s gross!”

After a few seconds, they both looked up in unison.

“We’re battling again,” Nova said seriously. “And this time, you’re not allowed to use your _goddamn piece of shit_ Darkrai.”

The girl cackled evilly. “You mean you’ve had all these years and a whole new generation, and you still haven’t found a better counter?”

“That thing is _fucking_ broken!” Nova said. “It’s an unfair _f_ -…”

However, the other girl suddenly cut him off by shushing him. “Stop swearing,” she whispered, “I hear someone coming.”

Out the back door of the house came a mousy, bespectacled old woman with white hair. She was holding a small box that was wrapped with multi colored wrapping paper.

“Oh man,” Nova said as the old lady approached the table. “Is that…”

“Here’s your birthday present,” the lady said. “Consider it a thank you for being such a good friend to Lily all these years.”

She laid the box on the table, and Nova wasted no time in tearing off the paper.

“No way!” he shouted, as it revealed the box for a black, standard sized 3DS. “My mom’s gonna be p- ticked off at you guys!”

“You’ll just have to keep it our little secret,” Lily said, winking at him.

“You may want to be heading home soon,” the old lady said. “I’m sure your parents will want to spend your birthday with you.”

At this, Nova seemed to deflate a bit. “I’m not in a big hurry,” he said.

“Yeah, grandma, it’s only four!” Lily said quickly. “He can stay a little bit longer. We still have business to settle, after all.”

Lily’s grandma chuckled. “All right, just don’t be out here too late.”

After her grandma went back into the house, Lily looked a Nova carefully. “Are your parents…”

“Yeah,” Nova said as she hesitated.

Nova begun unboxing the new 3DS, putting aside the charger and the instruction manual for now in favor of turning the system straight on.

“Oh yeah, before I forget,” Lily said, “you can have this now.”

She gave him another wrapped box, this one smaller and square-shaped. Inside was the box for _Mario Kart 7_.

“You guys are so cool,” Nova said, moved. Then suddenly, he jolted a bit. “Shit. I forgot to tell your grandparents thank you!”

Lily laughed at him. “Don’t sweat it.”

He begun getting the 3DS system set up, by entering in his name and the date and everything. “Man, I hope that I don’t have to move,” Nova said. “You know I’m not too good at making new friends.”

Lily didn’t say anything and looked off sadly.

* * *

 

A little later that day, Nova rode up his house on his bicycle. It was a fairly impressive two-story house made mostly of white stone. The neighborhood was green and full of trees, and behind Nova’s house was the Guadalupe River.

He parked his bicycle in the garage and then made for the back door. Before he had opened the door, he could hear the sound of people shouting indistinctly. Nova sighed slightly, and then went inside, into a room that had the washer and dryer.

“...won’t even please your own wife!” A woman’s voice was shouting. “What kind of man are you?”

“One who wants some peace and quiet that YOU won’t let me have!” A man shouted back.

Nova went through the laundry room and into the kitchen. A black man was at the sink furiously doing dishes, while a hispanic woman stood behind him with her hands on her hips. Nova did not look at either of them and instead walked as quickly through the doorway to the right. They didn’t seem to notice him pass by.

“Well, newsflash, Jace, _the rest of us in society_ don’t get any peace and quiet! We won’t until we’re _dead_!”

Nova went through the dining room, where the table was empty, an into the living room, where a TV was set up in front of a couch and a fancy glass table, situated on top of an entertainment center.

“Ain’t you ever gonna chill for just _two seconds!_ You ain’t human!”

On the top shelf was a GameCube and a Wii. Nova pressed the big white button on the GameCube and begun messing with the TV remote.

“I _ain’t_ soft like you,” the woman said, saying the word “ain’t” very mockingly. “I work for a god damn living and I’m tired of getting questions about why I still put up with you!”

Nova sat down on the couch holding his GameCube controller and waiting for the console to finish loading.

“It’s no wonder you don’t even know how to raise a child right!” the woman continued on.

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“You know that boy ain’t right, _Jace!_ ”

“I think I’m over a third of the way through the game,” Nova muttered to himself as the title screen for Star Fox Assault popped up. “Should be able to finish it in in a couple of days.”

“You heard what that doctor said! It ain’t no one’s fault!”

“I don’t give a damn about any doctor! You’re too weak to knock any sense into him, that’s what the problem is!”

“All right Pigma, where are you?” Nova muttered, louder this time, as he begun a level that took place near a snowy planet.

There was a loud clattering of dishes from the kitchen, followed by footsteps. “I ain’t gonna be _knocking_ anything… you’re crazy, woman!”

“DON’T YOU WALK AWAY FROM ME!”

Suddenly, a huge crash sounded from the kitchen as a plate was hurled against the wall.

“JESUS CHRIST!” the man yelled.

Nova didn’t react in any way. He just focused on the game as intently as possible.


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

Sunday, September 21, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

Back in present day Enchantment City, it was a warm summer afternoon. A large crowd of people were gathered under a pavillion that was next to a line of soccer fields. People were seated at picnic tables eating various home-cooked food items, mostly barbecue and mashed potatoes, and chattering amongst themselves.

At one of the tables sat Ashley’s parents. Her father was eyeing some ribs closely.

“You think these are fully cooked?” He asked.

“Yeah, of course it is,” Ashley’s mom replied.

“The meat looks rather red.”

“That’s  _ barbecue sauce, _ dear.” 

Dad shrugged and took a bite.

At that point, the horrible sound of microphone feedback could be heard. An older man with tiny, circular glasses dressed in flannel and jeans picked up a microphone that was connected to a set of speakers.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” he said in a southern accent that sounded somewhat forced. “It sure is a pleasure to see you all- er, to see y’all here. I’m Tim Pavia, your incumbent judge. I just want to thank all of you for coming here in support of my re-election effort.”

“I have been truly  _ blessed _ to serve the people of Enchantment City for the past few years. It says in Romans 13:1, ‘there is no authority except that which God has established.’ So I will uphold my personal duty of being the hands of God’s morality in this world.”

This got a round of applause from most of the audience. Mom, however, snickered at him. “He’s got a bit of a swollen head now, doesn’t he?”

“Maybe he should give Matthew 18:4 another look instead,” Dad commented. The two were shushed by an old lady nearby.

* * *

 

After the event, Dad drove them both home, as the sun begun to set. For a minutes, they didn’t say anything, but then Mom begun talking.

“Oh man… he’s become quite the talker, huh?” She rolled her eyes. “These types of things are always a drag… it’s all so masturbatory.”

“Still, it’s always a good idea to see what your representatives are up to,” Dad said.

“Well yeah… no arguments there.” Mom breathed out a puff of air. “It’s not like it matters. The only person running against him is that ex-KKK guy…”

“Indeed. We’ll take what we can get.”

“It’s frustrating, though… how everything nowadays is treated like we’re fighting some Holy War.”

There was a few seconds of silence before she continued.

“The national debt climbs higher at an alarming rate; small business is basically dead; doing your taxes is like playing the world’s worst game of Sudoku; youth unemployment is ridiculously high; who’s going to fix it all? It ain’t gonna be the Democrats, they’re the ones who started most of it. And if all Republicans are gonna do is hyper-focus on social issues, well…”

“It’s certainly a rough time,” Dad interjected. “Politicians don’t think about working together, so much as taking over Congress and ramming through laws that nobody even has time to read. I fear things are only going to get worse in the coming years.”

Mom sighed. “I hate to say it, but you’re probably right. Still, we can hope. Maybe in a couple of years we can get a president who can get the deficit under control...” 

“Or maybe we’ll get one who burns through tax dollars even faster.”

Mom sighed again. “Quit being such a downer.”

* * *

Monday, September 22, 2014 A.D.

* * *

 

As it turns out, the federal deficit was not just on the minds of Ashley’s parents. The next day, during lunch time, Ashley and Anja were also embroiled in a serious discussion.

“Sure, the debt grew considerably under W. Bush,” Ashley was explaining, “but the rate of change increased dramatically in 2008.”

“...Which was while Bush was still president. The election doesn’t happen until the  _ end of the year _ ,” Anja retorted. “And it’s been going down since then. The Obama administration has been making gradual cuts in military spending.”   
“Okay, fair enough,” Ashley admitted, “but the budget won’t be balanced by just cutting military. The biggest source of spending of the federal government is entitlements.”

Anja bristled at her and leaned forward. “So what, we’re just going to  _ fuck over  _ our sick and elderly? Is that really worth it?”

“That’s not what I said,” Ashley replied, eyes narrowing. “But by all means, interrupt me mid-sentence before I have a chance to explain that it’s possible to get a greater return on public spending than we currently are by…”

“Man, do you have any idea what those two are going on about?” Zoe asked Nova, smiling and shaking her head.

Nova was not playing his 3DS like normal. He was just poking the shredded chicken that was inside a dry tortilla with a plastic fork.

After a few seconds, he noticed that Zoe was looking at him. “What?” he asked.

“Um… did… were you able to catch what I said?” Zoe asked tenderly.

“I’m thinkin’ about other stuff,” Nova replied vaguely.

The bell rung to signal the beginning of the next period. Unfortunately, Ashley and Anja weren’t able to reach a consensus about what to do with the Social Security program, and they were forced to part ways for their respective classes while still angry.

“Well, I wish I could say that I’m glad she’s back to her old self, but…”

Ashley and Zoe had to walk the same direction to their next classes, so they went off down the hall side by side, wading through the influx of chattering students.

“How do you know all of that?” Zoe asked her. “I mean, about the government and stuff.”

“I overhear things,” Ashley explained. “Things my parents talk about. I try to pay attention when I can.”

Zoe’s eyes opened slightly more in surprise. “Oh… so that’s what your parents talk about?” Zoe asked. 

“Yeah. You mean your parents never discuss what they hear on the news?”

“Well, they do… but not like that.” Zoe started biting her lip again. “Sometimes, when they’re mad, they’ll start talking about immigrants, and Muslims, and…”

She stopped mid sentence. Ashley turned and looked at her curiously. “And what?” She asked.

Zoe looked over her shoulder. “My class is down that hall, I better talk to you later,” she said.   
“Wanna come over after my piano lesson?” Ashley offered.

Zoe turned back towards Ashley with a beaming grin. “That sounds nice,” she said.

Ashley couldn’t help but to smile a little bit back as she watched Zoe head for her class.

* * *

 

Later that afternoon, Zoe was dropped off at Ashley’s house. She politely knocked on the door, and after thirty seconds or so, Ashley’s mom answered it.

“Come on in!” She said in greeting. 

After Zoe had entered into the entryway, Ashley’s mom turned around to her.

“You don’t have to keep knocking on the door, you know,” she commented. “The back door is usually unlocked. You can come in through the breezeway.” 

“Oh!” Zoe said, surprised. “I- I don’t want to be intrusive.”

Ashley’s mom smiled and shook her head. “It’s not, if we know it’s you. You’re here all the time anyway.”

There was an awkward pause, as Zoe looked around the dining room and the rest of the house. “Um… Is Ashley home right now?”

“Yes, although I don’t know what she’s doing. She’s usually already waiting at the door whenever you get here.”

Ashley’s mom took off down the hallway that led to Ashley’s room at a brisk pace, and Zoe followed behind her. 

When she arrived at the door, she knocked sharply on the door. “Hey Ash, your friend is here,” she called.

There was no response. After a few seconds, Ashley’s mom rolled her eyes and just entered into the room anyway.

Ashley was sitting on her bed, eyes closed and wearing a large pair of headphones. Whenever her mom entered the room, she opened her eyes and quickly made to stop an old-fashioned record player that was sitting on the bed next to her.

“Make sure you put that back before your father gets home,” her mom commented. “You know how particular he is about his stuff.” And without further ado, she exited the room, leaving Ashley and Zoe alone together.

At this point, Ashley was unplugging the record player and setting it down on the floor against the wall, underneath the window. “Sorry… lost track of time,” she said, as she sat back down on the bed.

Zoe begun tentatively making to sit down next to her. “What were you listening to just now?” she asked. 

Ashley pulled up a vinyl sleeve that was sitting on her night stand and showed it to Zoe. The sleeve has “A Love Supreme/John Coltrane” written at the top in blocky white letters. Below that was a black and white photo showing a side view of a black man, who was looking into the distance pensively. 

“Oh! I’ve heard of him!” Zoe said, taking a seat right next to Ashley on the bed. Ashley set the cover back down on the nightstand.

“Considering you’ve been learning jazz saxophone, I’d be shocked if you hadn’t,” Ashley said. “This was basically when he was going through his emo phase,” she explained. “Started getting into free jazz.”

After a brief pause, Ashley turned towards Zoe and took her into a full embrace. Zoe hugged her back, her face blushing pink all over. For a little while, they simply sat there wordlessly. 

After a long while, they pulled back and simply looked into each other’s eyes. “This is… kind of insane, what we’re doing, isn’t it?” Zoe asked carefully.

“Yeah,” Ashley said. 

When she didn’t elaborate, Zoe continued. “It’s scary… We would probably be in big trouble if anyone found out…”

Ashley didn’t say anything. She simply leaned forward and kissed Zoe on the lips. 

After a few seconds, they pulled away. Zoe was smiling at her despite herself, face still flushed red. Ashley put her arms on Zoe’s sides in a sort of cradling position.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you, something,” Ashley asked. “What kind of music do you listen to? You know, for fun?”

“Oh,” Zoe said. “Um… don’t judge me too hard, okay? I really like this band called Paramore.”

“I see,” Ashley said. “I’ve vaguely heard of them. You don’t seem like the type, huh?”

Zoe blinked, taken aback by the comment. “Uh… I suppose not.”

“Ever get tired of keeping secrets, Zoe?” Ashley asked her, looking at her closely.

Zoe didn’t have a response for this. She just looked back at Ashley blankly.

* * *

 

Hello everyone. If you've read this far, thank you. 

I won't be adding any more to this story because there are some things I am unhappy with and I want to reboot it with some significant changes. 

I figured I might as well post what little I had of Chapter 2 for documentation purposes.

So if you want to see more, you'll have to check my profile because I'll be posting the new version under a separate entry (thought I'll probably keep the same title.)


End file.
